Printing something that harms a person’s reputation is called

John Peter Zenger was a printer in colonial New York during the early eighteenth century. He leveraged a colonial political scandal to prop up his struggling printing business and eventually emerged a successful proprietor of a print shop as well as publisher of the New-York Weekly Journal. He leveraged a colonial political scandal to prop up his struggling printing business and eventually emerged a successful proprietor of a print shop.

Although Zenger, an uneducated workman who had no direct involvement in politics, was probably unaware of the significance of his trial, he emerged as a kind of folk hero during the nineteenth century, celebrated as a zealous defender of freedom of the press. His name and his famous trial thus became synonymous with this basic American right.

What happened to john peter zenger

He was born in the village of Rumbach in the German Palatinate in , the eldest of four children of Nicolaus Zenger, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Johanna. Sometime in late , when John Peter was twelve, the Zenger family joined the mass migration of Palatinates and other German-speakers to England, with the intention of immigrating to North America.

In April the Zengers, including John and his two surviving siblings, sailed for New York with a large contingent of other emigrants. According to the terms of the indenture John Peter Zenger was required to work for William Bradford until his maturity. Bradford had originally operated a printing shop in Philadelphia when he arrived in the colony in , but his publications led to a series of civil and religious conflicts with the Quaker leadership of Pennsylvania, including a arrest and trial after he published a religious pamphlet by George Keith that criticized mainstream Quaker religious practices.

These clashes with the local Quaker authorities convinced Bradford to leave Philadelphia for New York in In this capacity, he printed currency, books, legal documents, and other materials for the colonial government. Additionally, he produced printed material for private individuals on a contract basis. Working for Bradford, Zenger would have learned the ins and outs of the printing trade and would have acquired valuable and marketable experience by helping Bradford print the wide variety of official and private materials that passed through his shop.

On July 28 of that year he married Mary White in Philadelphia.