Ink Stained Wretches

I think the Internet, the blogging, is the closest we've come in a long time to the history of the American media in the beginning. You know in the 1820's, 1830's all you needed to be a journalist was to buy a press. That's why they called them inkstained wretches. Because they operated their own hand presses. For a little bit of money, like Tom Paine and others, you could have your own press. ... After the revolution independent journalists, printers they called themselves, sprung up all over the country ... they were partisan by the way, vociferously. They attacked the others' politics. but it was a healthy period of bombast in America in which people could sort out the information. I think the bloggers, then the websites, come closest to the spirit of cacophony, to that democratic expression, that we had in the early part of this country's history.
— Bill Moyers,
...care of Daily Kos
...borrowed from The Power of Many
...lifted from Techjournalism...