In 1787, the United States was in a state of self-discovery. As the founding fathers drafted radical new ideas about their young democracy, a need to prevent the government from becoming too powerful remained at the forefront of their minds. And it was in January of that year Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to a friend, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”