participation. This participation is communal rather than 
private, inclusive rather than exclusive. Further features of its 
form can best be grasped by a few random views taken from 
outside the present form of the press. Historically, for example, 
newspapers had waited for news to come to them. The first 
American newspaper, issued in Boston by Benjamin Harris on 
September 25, 1690, announced that it was to be “furnished 
once a month (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener).” 
Nothing could more plainly indicate the idea that news was 
something outside and beyond the newspaper. Under such 
rudimentary conditions of awareness, a principal function of 
the newspaper was to correct rumors and oral reports, as a 
dictionary might provide “correct” spellings and meanings for 
words that had long existed without the benefit of dictionaries. 
Fairly soon the press began to sense that news was not only to 
be reported but also gathered, and, indeed, to be made. What