The freedom of the press in colonial America was not historically seen as a fundamental right that Englishmen possessed.
In fact, it was viewed with suspicion by both local and imperial governing bodies in the colonies. Both statements are true with regard to freedom of the press in colonial America.
North America was a British colony until the American revolution in the late eighteenth century. So, until 1776, the colonists were being deprived of their fundamental rights at the hands of the British.
After the American revolution in 1776, the colonists considered press freedom fundamental to their democracy.
Press was affirmed freedom in the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776 which states press freedom as 'the greatest bulwarks of liberty that can not be restrained.
However, historically, British deprived the colonial America of their fundament right and viewed it with suspicion.
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