But on other occasions the editor made an earnest but unavailing effort to procure the news. A single issue of 1826 affords two examples: private letters in town had brought hints of a duel between Randolph and Clay, but it proved impossible to verify the reports, while of a fire that morning in Chambers Street no accurate facts were ascertainable. In September, 1809, the Common Council dismissed William Mooney, a Tammany leader, from the superintendency of the almshouse, and men surmised that the grounds were corruption. A few days later Coleman published the following notice:
Information Wanted:—I have been waiting some days in hopes that some person would furnish me with facts which led to the disaster which on Monday last befell the Grand Sachem, who lately presided over the almshouse. Surely the citizens have a right to be informed of such things. Will any person, acquainted with the circumstances, communicate them to the editor?
Unfortunately, no informed person came forward. During the last days of the War of 1812, commercial firms constantly tried to obtain private news of the progress of the peace negotiations. There is a pathetic note of frustration in the Evening Post’s item of Nov. 29, 1814: “Considering the public entitled to all the information in our power, we barely mention that there is a London paper of the 28th ult. in town, which is kept from the public eye at present. We will not conjecture what the contents are, but merely venture to say that it is probably something of moment.”
Nor was the news, collected under such great disadvantages, quite as accurate as news is now required to be. In August, 1805, the evening papers caused much stir and conjecture in the little city by announcing that Jefferson had called the Senate together upon important foreign business. Next day they explained that this false report had originated with a mischievous young man who had arrived from Philadelphia in the mail stage, and whose name they would like to learn. Coleman was somewhat embarrassed two years later to have to state:
We are requested by Mr. Wright to contradict the account published yesterday of his being lost in crossing the North River.
When in 1810 the town was on tiptoe to learn the President’s January message to Congress, or as Coleman called it, “the great War-Whoop,” two conflicting summaries reached the evening papers at once; one communicated by a gentleman who arrived direct from Washington, and one obtained through the Philadelphia Aurora from a commercial express rider. While waiting fuller news, they could only print both and let readers take their choice. During the spring of 1812, with war impending, the press was replete with mere gossip and rumor, sometimes well founded, more often baseless. As late as 1826 there occurred a striking illustration of the inaccuracy of much that passed for foreign news, and of the difficulty which truth experienced in overtaking error. The Greek revolution had broken out in 1821, and the massacres of Chios and Constantinople, the victory of Marco Bozzaris, and the death of Byron had kindled a flame of phil-hellenism throughout America. On April 26, 1826, the Greek stronghold of Missolonghi was captured. Despite this, late in May there reached New York a circumstantial account of the relief of Missolonghi, the slaughter of the Turks, the death of their hated commander Ibrahim, and the brightening prospect of Greek liberty, all of which the newspapers spread forth under such captions as “Glorious News From Greece.” Early in June this was contradicted by the true news. Nevertheless, wrote Coleman on July 20, “on taking up a late Tennessee newspaper we find that the ‘Glorious News’ has just reached our western neighbors and that they are now only beginning to rejoice at the deliverance of Missolonghi.”
We can most vividly appreciate just how far the early newspapers succeeded—for the Evening Post was typical of the best sheets—and how far they failed as purveyors of current information, by listing the materials presented in a single week chosen at random. In the seven days May 9–14 inclusive, 1803, Coleman published the following intelligence:
| FOREIGN | DOMESTIC |
| War Rumored Between Britain and France | Fire in Troy, N. Y. |
| Monroe Arrives at Havre | Editor Duane Apologizes for Libel |
| French Hunt Haitians With Bloodhounds | Cheetham Fined $200 for Libel |
| Column on Harlem Races | |
| Two Columns on British Penal Reform | Paine Publishes Letter from Jefferson |
| French Prefect Reaches New Orleans | Grainger’s Record as Postmaster-General |
| British Give South Africa to Dutch | Fire in New York Coach Factory |
| Demands of Dey of Algiers on Powers | Two Benefits at Local Theatre |
| More Rumors of Anglo-French War | Election Dispute in Ulster County |
| Agrarian Violence in Ireland | Election Incident at Pawling |
| London Stock-Market Fluctuations | Advance Sale of Marshall’s “Washington” |
| European Trade Rivalries in Levant | XYZ Affair Reviewed |
| French Troops Concentrate in Holland |
This was absolutely all, and many of these subjects were treated in only a few lines, and with obvious haziness and inexactitude. It is plain that the week’s budget did carry much illumination to the public mind; but it is also plain that only a tiny part of the world’s activities were being covered, that city news was appallingly neglected, and that a modern journal treating each day hundreds of subjects would then have been inconceivable.
Yet the press could boast of occasional feats of news presentation which would do credit to journalism even now. The political meetings of each party were almost always well reported by its own party organs. In 1807 Burr’s trial was covered for the Evening Post by a special correspondent whose reports were dry—there was no description of scene or personages, no attention to emphasis, and little direct quotation of counsel or witnesses—but were also expert, comprehensive, and minute. It is well known that the greatest of American earthquakes occurred in 1811 in the Missouri and Arkansas country just west of the Mississippi. The Evening Post was fortunate enough to obtain a three-column account of it, vivid, intelligent, and thrilling, from the pen of an observer who witnessed it from a point near New Madrid. The special Albany letters were fair; for years the Evening Post derived occasional bits of inside information from Federalist Congressmen, and made good use of them; and its London correspondence, which began in 1819 with an account of the Holkham sheep-shearing, was on a level with much London correspondence of to-day. One of the most extravagant items in the Evening Post’s first account book is $50 for getting President Madison’s annual message of 1809 to New York by “pony express.” An attempt was made to use carrier pigeons when the House in 1824 elected J. Q. Adams President, but it proved a failure.