"I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief... This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." --Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814.
"Our printers raven on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1811.
"As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806.
"Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819.
"The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807.
Just a little stroll down history lane! enemdeia, indeed!
"Our newspapers, for the most part, present only the caricatures of disaffected minds. Indeed, the abuses of the freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before known or borne by any civilized nation." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Pictet, 1803. ME 10:357
This has been an issue since before our inception. While the need of a 'Free Press' is obvious and Thomas Jefferson spoke highly of this need to a Free Nation, as much as he and many others spoke after our Nation formed, it's obvious it all left a bad taste in their mouths. A taste that likely required many Ales to wash away.