Oct. 1-7, 2023

This year marks the 83rd celebration of National Newspaper Week. Since 1940, Newspaper Association Managers has sponsored and supported National Newspaper Week, a week-long promotion of the newspaper industry in the United States and Canada.

National Newspaper Week is October 1-7 and is a week set aside to highlight the importance of newspapers. Of course, the founding fathers of the United States of American understood this importance as Freedom of the Press was incorporating into the Constitution as part of the First Amendment – the Bill of Rights.

Freedom of the press—the right to report news or circulate opinion without censorship from the government— was considered “one of the great bulwarks of liberty,” by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Americans enjoy freedom of the press as one of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The Bill of Rights provides constitutional protection for certain individual liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to assemble and petition the government.

Before the thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain, the British government attempted to censor the American media by prohibiting newspapers from publishing unfavorable information and opinions.

One of the first court cases involving freedom of the press in America took place in 1734. British governor William Cosby brought a libel case against the publisher of The New York Weekly Journal, John Peter Zenger, for publishing commentary critical of Cosby’s government. Zenger was acquitted.

American free press ideals can be traced back to Cato’s Letters, a collection of essays criticizing the British political system that were published widely across pre-Revolutionary America.

The essays were written by Brits John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. They were published under the pseudonym of Cato between 1720 and 1723. (Cato was a statesman and outspoken critic of corruption in the late Roman Republic.) The essays called out corruption and tyranny in the British government.

A generation later, Cato’s Letters frequently were quoted in newspapers in the American colonies as a source of revolutionary political ideas.

Virginia was the first state to formally protect the press. The 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights stated, “The freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.”

More than a decade later, Virginia Representative (and later president of the United States) James Madison would borrow from that declaration when drafting the First Amendment.

Though challenged many times in courts across the nation with many of those cases making their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Courts have overwhelmingly sided with the press and their freedom to report news uncensored by any government entity or other influence.

As Charlotte Tillar Schexnayder (19232020), former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and former publisher and editor of the Dumas Clarion, Dumas, AR, stated: “A free press is the guardian of democracy. In whatever form, it must be preserved.”

This week, The Jena Times Olla-Tullos-Urania Signal joins with thousands of newspapers across the nation to celebrate National Newspaper Week.

“Where would our small towns and parishes be without a local newspaper,” Times-Signal Editor Craig Franklin said. “The last few years have been especially tough on small town newspapers but we are thankful for the support LaSalle Parish has shown this newspaper as it continues to thrive while others fail.”

More than 2,200 independent voices in the form of weekly newspapers have closed across the country over the last 20 years, according to a PBS NewsHour report.

In the PBS feature, it notes “The closures have also closed off a community lifeline, as evidenced in the small town of Canadian, Texas, where a local rancher told Judy Woodruff: ‘It’s almost like a death in the family.’” Newspapers truly are the lifeline of a community. They cover everything from increases water rates, crime, government meetings and how tax money is being spent.

Newspapers help a community celebrate a birth and help mourn deaths. Newspapers keep keeps a community updated on the local sports team and helps voters decide election issues.

“We are thankful that God allows us to continue the proud tradition and legacy of The Jena Times here in LaSalle,” Franklin said. “I can’t imagine what our parish would look like without a local paper providing the coverage this parish has come to expect.”