History shows it has been a bumpy ride.

Freedom of the press is as American as apple pie. Since it appears in the very First Amendment of the US Constitution, it is often cited by members of the media as a right to oppose politicians and government authorities. This concept of a free press is complex to apply and maintain, yet the United States has done just that – though not without a few skirmishes along the way.

The friction between government authorities and members of the media is not new, nor is it worse than ever before, as many 21st-century media outlets have labeled it. The hostility between President Donald Trump and members of the legacy media is not unprecedented – not by a long shot.

Historic Struggles of a Free Press

It didn’t take long for the young Republic to run afoul of this new freedom. The Alien and Sedition Act, passed on July 14, 1798, gave then-President John Adams vast powers over the press, allowing for the “deportation, fine, or imprisonment of anyone deemed a threat or publishing ‘false, scandalous, or malicious writing’ against the government,” according to the US House of Representatives history website. Critics of Adams, including newspapers and pamphlets, would be silenced under the new measure. The law reportedly was championed by the wife of the president, Abigail Adams, who believed her husband’s opponents in the publishing business to be “criminal and vile.” The History Channel noted:

“In direct violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech, the Sedition Act permitted the prosecution of individuals who voiced or printed what the government deemed to be malicious remarks about the president or government of the United States. Fourteen Republicans, mainly journalists, were prosecuted, and some imprisoned, under the act.”

The Sedition Act eventually expired during the Jefferson administration, along with pardons for those convicted of seditious crimes. So it died for a while, only to rise again – this time in the 20th century under the administration of Woodrow Wilson. On May 16, 1918, Congress passed another Sedition Act – this time, it concerned World War I.

Those found making false statements, or those who published information considered “disloyal” to the government, would be subject to various penalties, including imprisonment. The most famous case under this Sedition Act, which was part of the Espionage Act of 1917, was the imprisonment of self-identified socialist Eugene V. Debs, who was arrested and sentenced to a decade in prison. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where his confinement was upheld. Debs eventually got out of jail in 1921, when the second Sedition Act was repealed.

Throughout the 20th century, tensions between the press and the government resurfaced again during the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. However, one of the most celebrated cases of this war between the press and authorities was that of Judith Miller, a journalist with The New York Times. She was jailed for “refusing to testify against her sources in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s name by White House officials,” according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Miller was imprisoned in 2005 and spent 85 days in jail before a compromise settled the case.

There are, in fact, countless numbers of reporters who have been threatened with prison and many who have served time for exercising their First Amendment rights. It’s likely to stay that way as long as there is a free press. Conflicts will arise as the media rubs up against the government. A healthy mistrust of one another causes this friction, and perhaps that’s as it should be.