Thursday, January 22, 2009—Jill Lepore has an ambiguous but lovely piece in the latest New Yorker called “Back Issues: The day the newspaper died.” She seems not to take a predictive position on the format’s future, but it’s gratifying to see such a vivid picture of the newspaper’s place in the fight for liberty. All the more so because we get a mention.
Ms. Lepore quotes Daniel Fowle’s issue of this paper dated October 31, 1765, which “lamented its own demise.” And she cites his coverage of the mock funeral of Liberty held here in Portsmouth the next day.
“In the eighteenth century,” Lepore writes, “the death of a newspaper signalled the death of liberty.” We’re pleased to have survived our own “demise” 243 years ago, and happy to announce we’re working on a scheme, not just to survive, but to revive liberty as well.
Now that we’ve re-organized this site to make our recent papers more readily available (see “Free Downloads,” at the upper left) we plan to use this space to discuss that plan. Stay tuned.