That's certainly untrue, at that time access to any sort of mass communication was even more controlled by a few private actors. There were not all that many ma

That's certainly untrue, at that time access to any sort of mass communication was even more controlled by a few private actors. There were not all that many major printing presses out there and a limited number of publishers would have truly controlled your only access to dissemiating information to a significant number of people besides actual in-person speech. And they certainly did choose what they were willing to publish.