Editing Benjamin Franklin (section)

===Newspaperman===
{{further|Early American publishers and printers}}
[[File:Franklin the printer2.jpg|thumb|Franklin (center) at work on a [[printing press]] in a painting published by the [[Detroit Publishing Company]] in {{Circa|1914}}]]
Upon Denham's death, Franklin returned to his former trade. In 1728, he set up a printing house in partnership with [[Hugh Meredith]]; the following year he became the publisher of ''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]'', a newspaper in Philadelphia. The ''Gazette'' gave Franklin a forum for agitation about a variety of local reforms and initiatives through printed essays and observations. Over time, his commentary, and his adroit cultivation of a positive image as an industrious and intellectual young man, earned him a great deal of social respect. But even after he achieved fame as a scientist and statesman, he habitually signed his letters with the unpretentious 'B. Franklin, Printer'.<ref name="vandoren"/>

In 1732, he published the first German-language newspaper in America – ''Die Philadelphische Zeitung'' – although it failed after only one year because four other newly founded German papers quickly dominated the newspaper market.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa071299.htm|title=German Newspapers in the US and Canada|access-date=October 7, 2014|archive-date=September 12, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160912040836/http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa071299.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Franklin also printed [[Moravian Church|Moravian]] religious books in German. He often visited [[Bethlehem, Pennsylvania]], staying at the [[Moravian Sun Inn]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=John B. |last=Frantz |title=Franklin and the Pennsylvania Germans |journal=Pennsylvania History |year=1998 |pages=21–34 |url=https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/25467/25236 }}</ref> In a 1751 pamphlet on demographic growth and its implications for the Thirteen Colonies, he called the [[Pennsylvania Dutch|Pennsylvania Germans]] "Palatine Boors" who could never acquire the "Complexion" of [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] settlers and referred to "Blacks and Tawneys" as weakening the social structure of the colonies. Although he apparently reconsidered shortly thereafter, and the phrases were omitted from all later printings of the pamphlet, his views may have played a role in his political defeat in 1764.{{sfn|Gleason|2000|pp=3–17}}

According to Ralph Frasca, Franklin promoted the printing press as a device to instruct colonial Americans in moral virtue. Frasca argues he saw this as a service to God, because he understood moral virtue in terms of actions, thus, doing good provides a service to God. Despite his own moral lapses, Franklin saw himself as uniquely qualified to instruct Americans in morality. He tried to influence American moral life through the construction of a printing network based on a chain of partnerships from the Carolinas to New England. He thereby invented the first newspaper chain.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}} It was more than a business venture, for like many publishers he believed that the press had a public-service duty.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Frasca | first1 = Ralph | year = 1997 | title = Benjamin Franklin's Journalism | journal = [[Fides et Historia]] | volume = 29 | issue = 1| pages = 60–72 }}</ref><ref>Ralph Frasca, ''Benjamin Franklin's Printing Network: Disseminating Virtue in Early America'' (University of Missouri Press, 2006) {{doi|10.1111/j.1540-6563.2007.00197_16.x}} online review by [[Robert Middlekauff]].</ref>

When he established himself in Philadelphia, shortly before 1730, the town boasted two "wretched little" news sheets, [[Andrew Bradford]]'s ''The American Weekly Mercury'' and [[Samuel Keimer]]'s ''Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/225/index.html|title=Vol. 15. Colonial and Revolutionary Literature; Early National Literature, Part I. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907–21|website=www.bartleby.com}}</ref> This instruction in all arts and sciences consisted of weekly extracts from ''Chambers's Universal Dictionary''. Franklin quickly did away with all of this when he took over the ''Instructor'' and made it ''The Pennsylvania Gazette''. The ''Gazette'' soon became his characteristic organ, which he freely used for satire, for the play of his wit, even for sheer excess of mischief or of fun. From the first, he had a way of adapting his models to his own uses. {{anchor|The Busy-Body}}{{anchor|The Busybody}}The series of essays called "[[The Busy-Body (pen name)|The Busy-Body]]," which he wrote for Bradford's ''American Mercury'' in 1729, followed the general [[Joseph Addison|Addisonian]] form, already modified to suit homelier conditions. The thrifty Patience, in her busy little shop, complaining of the useless visitors who waste her valuable time, is related to the women who address Mr. Spectator. The Busy-Body himself is a true Censor Morum, as [[Isaac Bickerstaff]] had been in the ''Tatler''. And a number of the fictitious characters, Ridentius, Eugenius, Cato, and Cretico, represent traditional 18th-century classicism. Franklin even used this classical framework for contemporary satire, as seen in the character of Cretico, the "sour Philosopher," who is clearly a caricature of his rival, Samuel Keimer.<ref>Cook, ''Colonial and Revolutionary Literature; Early National Literature, Part I. Colonial Newspapers and Magazines, 1704–1775'' (1917){{page needed|date=October 2022}}</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2022}}

Franklin had mixed success in his plan to establish an inter-colonial network of newspapers that would produce a profit for him and disseminate virtue. Over the years he sponsored two dozen printers in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and even the Caribbean. By 1753, eight of the fifteen English language newspapers in the colonies were published by him or his partners.<ref>Ralph Frasca, ''Benjamin Franklin's Printing Network: Disseminating Virtue in Early America'' (2006) pp. 19, 196.</ref> He began in [[Charleston, South Carolina]], in 1731. After his second editor died, the widow, [[Elizabeth Timothy]], took over and made it a success. She was one of the colonial era's first woman printers.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Baker | first1 = Ira L. | s2cid = 143677057 | year = 1977 | title = Elizabeth Timothy: America's First Woman Editor | journal = Journalism Quarterly | volume = 54 | issue = 2| pages = 280–85 | doi=10.1177/107769907705400207}}</ref> For three decades Franklin maintained a close business relationship with her and her son [[Peter Timothy]], who took over the ''[[South Carolina Gazette]]'' in 1746.<ref>Ralph Frasca, "'The Partnership at Carolina Having succeeded, was Encourag'd to Engage in Others': The Genesis of Benjamin Franklin's Printing Network", ''Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South'' (2006), Vol. 13 Issue 1/2, pp.&nbsp;1–23.</ref> The ''Gazette'' was impartial in political debates, while creating the opportunity for public debate, which encouraged others to challenge authority. Timothy avoided blandness and crude bias and, after 1765, increasingly took a patriotic stand in the growing crisis with Great Britain.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = Jeffery A. | year = 1993 | title = Impartiality and Revolutionary Ideology: Editorial Policies of the 'South-Carolina Gazette,' 1732–1735 | journal = Journal of Southern History | volume = 49 | issue = 4| pages = 511–26 | doi = 10.2307/2208674 | jstor = 2208674 }}</ref> Franklin's ''Connecticut Gazette'' (1755–68), however, proved unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Frasca | first1 = Ralph | year = 2003 | title = 'I am now about to establish a small Printing Office&nbsp;... at Newhaven': Benjamin Franklin and the First Newspaper in Connecticut | journal = Connecticut History | volume = 44 | issue = 1| pages = 77–87 | doi = 10.2307/44369668 | jstor = 44369668 | s2cid = 254488378 }}</ref> As the Revolution approached, political strife slowly tore his network apart.<ref>Frasca, ''Benjamin Franklin's Printing Network,'' pp. 161–167.</ref>