The Fourth Estate is a term referring to the press Journalism is the investigation and reporting of events, issues, and trends to a broad audience. Although there is much variation within journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Besides covering organizations and institutions such as government and business, journalism also covers cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. In this sense the term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator, who attributed it, possibly erroneously, to a coining by Edmund Burke Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, and for his later opposition to the French during a parliamentary debate in 1787 on the opening up of press reporting of the House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members (since 2010 General Election), who are known as "Members of Parliament&.^[1] Earlier writers have applied the term to lawyers, to the queen of England, acting on her own account distinct from the power of the king, and to "the mob".

History of the primary meaning

The term in current use is now appropriated to the Press,^[2] with the earliest use in this sense described by Thomas Carlyle in his book On Heroes and Hero Worship:

Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.^[3]

In Burke's 1787 coining he would have been making reference to the traditional three estates of Parliament: The Lords Spiritual The Lords Spiritual of the United Kingdom, also called Spiritual Peers, are the 26 bishops of the established Church of England who serve in the House of Lords along with the Lords Temporal. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, is not represented by spiritual peers. The Anglican churches in Wales and Northern Ireland are no longer, the Lords Temporal and the Commons.^[4] If, indeed, Burke did make the statement Carlyle attributes to him, the remark may have been in the back of Carlyle's mind when he wrote in his French Revolution (1837), "A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up; increases and multiplies, irrepressible, incalculable."^[5] In this context, the other three estates are those of the French States-General In France under the Ancien Régime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly (see The Estates) of the different classes (or estates) of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king. It had no true power in its own right; unlike the English: the church Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,, the nobility Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions, and the townsmen Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,.^[4] Carlyle, however, may have mistaken his attribution: Thomas Macknight, writing in 1858, observes that Burke was merely a teller In the United Kingdom, tellers are people working on behalf of political parties who stand or sit outside the polling station and collect the electoral registration numbers of voters as they enter or leave. They play no official part in the election, but their work helps their parties to identify supporters who have not yet voted, so that they can at the "illustrious nativity of the Fourth Estate".^[6] If Burke is excluded, other candidates for coining the term are Henry Brougham speaking in Parliament in 1823 or 1824 and Thomas Macaulay in an essay of 1828 reviewing Hallam's Constitutional History The only son of John Hallam, canon of Windsor and dean of Bristol, Henry Hallam was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1799. Called to the bar, he practised for some years on the Oxford circuit; but his tastes were literary, and when, on his father's death in 1812, he inherited a small estate in Lincolnshire, he gave himself: "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm."^[2][7]

Author Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890. Today he is remembered for his many epigrams, his plays which are still revived, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death wrote:

In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.^[8]

In American usage, the phrase "fourth estate" is contrasted with the "fourth branch of government", with "fourth estate" used to emphasize the independence of the press, while "fourth branch" suggests that the press is not independent of the government.^[9]

Alternative meanings

The law

In 1580 Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with proposed that governments should hold in check a fourth estate of lawyers selling justice to the rich and denying it to rightful litigants who do not bribe their way to a verdict:^[10]

What is more barbarous than to see a nation [...] where justice is lawfully denied him, that hath not wherewithall to pay for it; and that this merchandize hath so great credit, that in a politicall government there should be set up a fourth estate [tr. Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin, while: quatriesme estat] of Lawyers, breathsellers and pettifoggers [...]. —Michel de Montaigne, in the translation by John Florio John Florio , known in Italian as Giovanni Florio, was a linguist and lexicographer, a royal language tutor at the Court of James I, and a possible friend and influence on William Shakespeare. He was also the translator of Montaigne into English, 1603

The proletariat

An early citation for this is Henry Fielding Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones in The Covent Garden Journal (1752):

None of our political writers...take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords, and Commons..passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in this community...The Mob.^[11]

(This is an early use of "mob" to mean the mobile vulgus, the common masses The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who had no wealth other than their sons.)

This sense has prevailed in other countries: In Italy, for example, striking workers in 1890s Turin were depicted as Il quarto stato—The Fourth Estate—in a painting by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo.^[12] A political journal of the left, Quarto Stato, published in Milan, Italy, in 1926, also reflected this meaning.^[13]

The English queen

In a parliamentary debate of 1789 M.P. A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of parliament tend to form parliamentary parties with members Thomas Powys demanded of minister William Pitt William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC was a British Whig statesman who achieved his greatest fame leading Britain during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in North America). He again led the country (holding the official title of Lord Privy Seal) between 1766-68 that he should not allow powers of regency The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father to "a fourth estate: the queen". This account comes to us in the journalism of Burke who, as noted above, apparently was the first to use the phrase in its later meaning of "press".^[14]

Fiction

In his novel The Fourth Estate Jeffrey Archer Alongside his literary work, Archer was a Member of Parliament , deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86) and was made a life peer in 1992. Having suffered several controversies, his political career ended with his conviction and subsequent imprisonment (2001–03) for perjury and perverting the course of justice made the observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI Louis XVI of France ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estates General The Estates-General of 1789 (French: Les États-Généraux de 1789) was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm, the nobles, the Church and the common people. The independence from the Crown which it displayed paved the way for the French Revolution'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners." The book is a fictionalization from episodes in the lives of two real-life press barons: Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-born American media magnate and the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation.

See also

• Estates of the realm Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,
  • First Estate Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,
  • Second Estate Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,
  • Third Estate Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of society, usually distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners recognized in the Middle Ages and later, in some parts of Europe. While various realms inverted the order of the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further divided into burghers and peasants; in some regions,
  • Fifth Estate The term "Fifth Estate" has no fixed meaning, but is used to describe any class or group in society other than the clergy , the nobility (Second Estate), the commoners (Third Estate), and the press (Fourth Estate). It has been used to describe trade unions, the poor, the blogosphere and organized crime. It can also be used to describe

Notes

1. ^ Schultz, Julianne (1998). Reviving the fourth estate. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9780521629706.
2. ^ ^{a b} "estate, n, 7b". Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is a dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. As of December 2008[update], the editors had completed one quarter of a third edition (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1989.
3. ^ Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator (Lecture V, May 19, 1840), "The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns", On Heroes and Hero Worship, http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carlyle/heroes/hero5.html, retrieved November 18, 2006
4. ^ ^{a b} OED: "estate, n, 6a"
5. ^ "Chapter V. The Fourth Estate", The French Revolution, Sixth, London: Griffith Farrane Browne, pp. 146–148, http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/european/TheFrenchRevolution/chap39.html, retrieved November 12, 2009
6. ^ Macknight, Thomas (1858). History of the life and times of Edmund Burke. 1. London: Chapman and Hall. p. 462. OCLC OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs". It was incorporated on July 6, 1967 as the not-for-profit Ohio College Library Center. More than 72,00 3565018.
7. ^ Macaulay, Thomas (September 1828). "Hallam's constitutional history". The Edinburgh Review The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus (London: Longmans) 48: 165.
8. ^ Wilde, Oscar Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890. Today he is remembered for his many epigrams, his plays which are still revived, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death, "The Soul of Man under Socialism", in Guy, Josephine M., Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, IV, Oxford University Press Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative, p. 255, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ki5KybpBTmoC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255, retrieved 2006-04-16
9. ^ Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon. Unreliable Sources (New York, NY: Lyle Stuart, 1990) ISBN 0-8184-0521-X
10. ^ John Florio John Florio , known in Italian as Giovanni Florio, was a linguist and lexicographer, a royal language tutor at the Court of James I, and a possible friend and influence on William Shakespeare. He was also the translator of Montaigne into English (tr.) (1603), Michel de Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with, 1, Folio Society (published 2006), p. 104
11. ^ Fielding, Henry (13 June 1752). Covent Garden Journal (London) (47). , Quoted in OED "estate, n, 7b".
12. ^ Paulicelli, Eugenia (2001). Barański, Zygmunt G.; West, Rebecca J.. ed. The Cambridge companion to modern Italian culture. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 248. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9780521559829. For his painting, Pellizza transferred the action to his home village of Volpedo Volpedo is a comune in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 100 km east of Turin and about 30 km east of Alessandria. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,197 and an area of 10.6 km².
13. ^ Pugliese, Stanislao G. (1999). Carlo Rosselli: socialist heretic and antifascist exile. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 67–69. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9780674000537.
14. ^ Edmund Burke Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, and for his later opposition to the French, ed (1792). Dodsley's Annual Register for 1789. 31. London: J Dodsley. p. 112.

External links

• "The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns" from On Heroes and Hero Worship by Thomas Carlyle
• "The Fourth Estate", Section V of French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle, as posted in the online library of World Wide School

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