Most of the comments here are missing a big part of the context: newspapers in the early 1800s didn't do journalism as we know it today. Most relied entirely on

Most of the comments here are missing a big part of the context: newspapers in the early 1800s didn't do journalism as we know it today. Most relied entirely on rumors and letters that crossed their desk, combined with cribbing old stories from the foreign press. Newspaper staff was often just one or two people doing the writing, marketing, and distribution (and often the typesetting too). There wasn't this idea that a journalist should be conducting interviews or investigating stories or even arriving at the scene of anything. Most papers were funded largely by political patronage as well. For a great book on the history of American journalism I recommend "Infamous Scribblers" by Eric Burns.