One of the most important events in American journalism history occurred in New York in 1735. This, of course, was the libeltrail of John Peter Zenger, printer of the New York Weekly Journal.John Peter Zenger arrived in New York from Germany in 1710 and served an apprenticeship to William Bradford, printer ofthe New York Gazette. In 1733 New York Colonial Governor William Cosby stirred up a great controversy by prosecutingthe interim Governor, Rip Van Dam, and removing Chief Justice Lewis Morris from the courts. After Governor Cosby adoptedarbitrary measures against these men, and opposition group arose to fight him politically. These wealthy and powerful menestablished an opposition newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, and hired John Peter Zenger as the printer and editor.The Weekly Journal printed numerous articles critical of Governor Cosby until Cosby could take it no longer. In November,1734, Cosby had Zenger arrested and put in jail incommunicado for ten months.On August 4, 1735, Zenger was brought to trial and charged with seditious libel. He was defended by Philadelphia lawyer,Andrew Hamilton. The prosecution argued that the sole fact of publication was sufficient to convict and excluded the truth fromthe evidence. Hamilton admitted that Zenger published the offending stories, but denied that it was libel unless it was false.Hamilton made an eloquent appeal to the jury to judge both the law and the facts; as a result was acquitted. This finding of notguilty established truth as a defense against libel and was a landmark victory for freedom of the press. It also set a precedentagainst judicial tyranny in libel suits.It has long been held that the first report of Zenger's victory in court came in his own newspaper, the New York WeeklyJournal of August 18, 1735. The front page of that date contains the abbreviated story of his trial and in column two states "Thejury returned in Ten Minutes, and found me Not Guilty" However, a ...
