The Press: From Cuneiform to Current Form

In a day and age in which the uses and meaning of journalism are continually shifting, visiting the Crandall Historic Printing Museum gave context not only about the function of the press in the past, but also how this evolution is reflected in current day journalism.  While some of the means of communicating have clearly been altered since the days of cuneiform, it is significant to note that the purposes of journalism in communication have remained surprisingly constant.

A wealth of information, the Crandall Historical Printing Museum provides a steady stream of fascinating facts that could keep one amused for days or even weeks at a time.  For instance, I was fascinated to learn that the expression “mind your Ps and Qs” alludes to children misplacing confusing these two letters when putting them on a frame to print paper and that the terms “upper and lower case letters” originate from having typesetting stored in metal drawers.  On a more serious note, however, I was inspired by how mass printing played a key role in promoting revolutionary ideas to colonial Americans.  Without the printing press, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and other pamphlets would not have been distributed to ordinary citizens to galvanize them to fight for freedom of both expression and also the press.  One could even go as far as to argue that without Benjamin Franklin’s printing house, the American Revolution could not have been successful as it would have lacked the necessary support that would have come from widely disseminating this information.

Although the modern day press may lack the urgency of the revolutionary press in colonial America, it still espouses honesty and integrity.  In Chapter Three of The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil shed light upon the current quandary in the press of balancing the need to accrue profits with journalists’ duties to citizens to provide accurate information about people, events, and issues.  Max Frankel pays homage to the late former New York Times publisher in his article entitled “Punch Sulzberger and His Times” and saliently describes how Sulzberger skillfully dealt with this complicated issue: “his job was to give the news impartiality and reliably, without fear or favor, and to assure the survival of a precious institution. He had to make money, not to enrich the family or the stockholders, but mainly to protect the paper’s integrity and independence.”

Perhaps the most meaningful part of visiting the Crandall Historical Printing Museum was seeing how the press related to spreading our restored gospel.  In particular, I was moved and in astonishment that eight men and boys were able to produce 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon in seven months.  Based upon the printing technology available at the time, such a feat would have been deemed virtually impossible.  I firmly believe that those men had divine intervention, and my testimony of the truth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been strengthened from learning this information.  Without the unique freedom of the American press, the Church would not have come to fruition, so despite the imperfections of the press, it is always important to keep in mind our duty as Latter-day Saints to preserve the freedom inherent in the vehicle that allowed the Restoration to be maintained.