How the founders helped local media

Politico - In the early years of the republic, two camps had formed over the question of how much publishers should pay in postage to have their newspapers lugged around the country by horses. One group wanted publishers to pay some postage to partly cover the costs. Madison was more radical. He believed newspapers should be mailed for free. To charge anything would be a “tax on newspapers” — which, he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, would be “an insidious forerunner to something worse.” Jefferson agreed.

It’s notable that even the voices that countered Madison and Jefferson (and ultimately prevailed) wanted a massive subsidy. Indeed, the postal subsidy played an important role in standing up our free press. Given the sudden interest in public policy to support community media — bills to help local news are popping up in both Congress and in state legislatures around the country — it’s worth revisiting and truly understanding the significant government intervention in newspapers that began in the founding era and continued until the mid-20th century.