Print journalism in Georgia began in 1763 when James Johnston established the state’s first newspaper, the Georgia Gazette, in Savannah. Johnston was contracted as the colony’s royal printer but remained largely independent in his coverage of the confrontations between the colonists and royal government. After the Revolutionary War (1775-83), a burgeoning press developed across Georgia. As the state capital moved from Savannah to Augusta, and again to Louisville, entrepreneurial printers established newspapers in each of those cities. At the turn of the century, over a dozen new papers began circulation in expanding areas of the state. Among those frontier papers was the Monitor in Washington. It became the first Georgia newspaper to be published and edited by a woman when Sarah Porter Hillhouse took over the business following her husband's death in 1803.

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