fourth estate

The three (in England) estates were originally the three classes of people who could participate in government, either directly or by electing representatives – originally the clergy, barons/knights, and the commons (though they changed over time). Later the "three estates" were misunderstood as being the three governmental powers necessary for legislation: the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons; from there, the idea of a "fourth estate" was often used in satirical or jocular expressions, before developing a fixed association with the Press.

In the modern sense often attributed to Edmund Burke (1787), popularized by essayist William Hazlitt in the 19th century.

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fourth estate

1. (obsolete) A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 104:

     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. quatriesme estat] of Lawyers, breathsellers and pettifoggers […]

2. (idiomatic) Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 31, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     “Of what profession is Mr. Archer?”
     “Of the Corporation of the Goosequill—of the Press, my boy,” said Warrington; “of the fourth estate.”

   • 2020, AlternateHistoryHub, 16:26 from the start, in The 2010s: A Reflection Back On A Wacky Decade‎^[1], spoken by Cody Franklin:

     The fourth estate is a term to describe the power that journalists and news media have to keep the powers of government in check by informing the citizens. The way citizens have received news and information has always evolved, but throughout that whole time, having an informed audience was seen as a necessity to a functioning democracy. The newspaper itself has been dying for a while, even before social media, all thanks to 24-hour news.

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