Mist people think this refers to journalism. They are wrong. Yes, journalism and "The Press" as it refers to news reporters and journalists is included. As usual though, we in this modern day do not stop to consider what the founders, the authors of those founding documents really were referring to.
To put it bluntly, it refers to the ability to make information publicly available and able to be taught or communicated to others without being repressed by the government. This is not necessarily the same as the freedom of speech, though they are related.
Consider that prior to and at the time of the invention of the printing Press, what was made public information and taught openly was entirely controlled by those who could afford to pay for it. This made it largely accessible only to the monarchs and the wealthy upper class who decided what information could be made openly available to the masses.
Also consider that literacy, the ability to read and write, was largely limited to these same people and those they employed. Everyone else, the vast majority of people, were illiterate and dependent on others to tell them or teach them what "needed" to be known as determined by those who were in positions to decide such things.
What we take completely for granted here in the Western world is not recognized in many other places even in this day and age in many other places. Consider being told you were not allowed by law to read or write nor learn to do either.
Consider the modern ability to write a book an any subject you choose and self publish it and have it distributed and made available to anyone who wants to obtain it.
This situation did not exist here as we know it now prior to the American revolution. The King of England and those in positions of government made the decision as to what could be written, printed, taught and made public information. Illiteracy was still over 60% of the whole population.
People by large, were told and taught what the ruling class wanted them to know and made making anything else available a crime.
Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson to name a few were some of the most adamant of the founders that government and any wealthy self imposed "ruling class" here should not be able to impose upon the people, at large, any more.
Not only in printing, publishing, and journalism, but in keeping people illiterate as well. They wanted a person to be able to make information public that they chose to do so. By newspaper, book publishing, even in the classrooms. The government and so called "ruling class" should not be infringing upon that.
Thomas Jefferson championed public education emphatically to support this. The more people who could be made literate and openly and freely educated and informed, he believed, would keep the fire in the people to protect and preserve these rights.
In these modern days, socialists and communists openly advocate for limiting what is published and taught publicly to what they think. It's a ruling class comprised if those who believe in tyranny of the majority. Where no individual can be outside of what is deemed proper and ordinary by the majority.
They campaign publicly now to "cancel" and ostracize anyone who publishes, prints, teaches or makes information available that is contrary to their message.
