John Peter Zenger Trial
Name: ________________________________________________________
Assignment
Using the information, create a newspaper story of your own about Zenger’s trial on the back of this page. Use the
format boxes to guide how your article should look.
Background Information
Libel: the publication of unfavorable, untrue statements about a specific person
The man generally perceived to be the villain of the Zenger affair, William Cosby, arrived in New York on
August 7, 1731 to assume his post as Governor for New York Province. Cosby quickly developed a
reputation as "a rogue governor." It is almost impossible to find a positive adjective among the many
used by historians to describe the new governor : "spiteful," "greedy," "jealous," "quick-tempered," "dull,"
"unlettered," and "haughty" are a sample of those that have been applied.
Within a year after arriving on American shores, Cosby involved himself in a controversy that would lead
to Zenger's trial and ultimate acquittal. The man with whom Cosby chose to pick his first fight, Rip Van
Dam, was the seventy-one-year-old highly respected senior member of the New York provincial council.
Cosby demanded that Van Dam turn over half of the salary he had earned while serving as acting
governor of New York during the year between Cosby's appointment and his arrival in the colony, then
filed a suit to get that money.
Cosby tried to convince three judges to rule in his favor, but one, Lewis Morris, did not. Morris wrote a
pamphlet that publisher John Peter Zenger printed, blasting Cosby for threatening and bribing the other
two judges.
The New York Gazette was the only newspaper in town at the time and Cosby made sure Francis Harison,
a man called Cosby’s “flatterer-in-chief,” got the job of running it. To get their point of view seen, Morris
and other people who disliked Cosby helped Zenger start a newspaper called the New York Weekly
Journal.
On November 5, 1733, Zenger published the first issue of the Weekly Journal. He included a story about
Lewis Morris winning an election despite Cosby’s attempt at sabotaging it. Cosby tried to shut down the
Journal, but failed. Later issues of the Journal continued to tell of Cosby’s shady actions.
Cosby finally got Zenger arrested on charges of libel, and Zenger was thrown in jail with an absurdly high
bail. His lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argued that Zenger’s statements were all true, and therefore not libel.
Despite pro-Cosby judges practically ordering the jury to find Zenger guilty, they returned a “not guilty”
verdict, which was met with shouts of “huzzah” from the crowd that gathered on the last day of the trial in
August 1735.
This case is the basis for the right that U.S. citizens today enjoy of freedom of the press – that is, that the
government cannot prevent reporters from speaking negatively about government actions or officials, as
long as such statements are based on real facts. In other words, it’s not libel if it’s true.
Headline
Write your article here
Draw a relevant picture here
(Caption it below)
Make up an interesting quote someone
in the trial might have said here