J. L. Bell author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and Boston 1775
Tales from Boston’s Pre-Revolutionary Newspaper Wars
In the decade that led to the Revolutionary War, Boston’s newspapers were a major political battleground. The town’s journalism scene–the oldest and most active in colonial America–was roiled by new arrivals and old rivalries. Writers assailed each other in anonymous articles as nasty as any flame war. With the boundaries of a free press still under debate, printers were attacked on the streets and hauled into court. Hear the stories of that time, and consider what lessons they might hold for our public discourse and news media today.
J. L. Bell is the proprietor of the Boston 1775 website (boston1775.blogspot.com), providing daily helpings of history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about Revolutionary New England. He is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, a book-length study for the National Park Service about General George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and numerous articles and book chapters.