this light alone. They cannot govern society episodes, incidents, and eruptions."
Such lofty talk was long in coming to American journalism. In Ameri-can Journalism-A History: 1690-1960 (Macmillan, 3rd ed., 1962), the University of Missouri's Frank Luther Mott notes that the first con- tinuous U.S. newspaper was the Bos- ton News-Letter, founded in 1704 by Boston's postmaster, John Campbell. The weekly did not thrive: 15 years later, Campbell complained that he could not "vend 300 copies...