Journalism was a common by-product of the printing trade. When Franklin and Meredith took over Keimer's _The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences: and Pennsylvania Gazette_ in 1729, there were six other newspapers being published in the colonies--three in Boston and one each in New York, Philadelphia, and Annapolis. The Williamsburg press had a newspaper a few years later, but the other two printing towns in the colonies had to wait some thirty years for journalistic ventures--a newspaper in New London and a magazine in Woodbridge.[i-172] The fundamental question to be asked in analyzing a newspaper may be stated thus: What is the editorial conception of the primary function of the press? Franklin had received his early newspaper training on his brother's _New England Courant_, which frankly acknowledged entertainment as its primary function and relegated news to a minor place. Of his contemporaries in 1729, the oldest, the _Boston News-Letter_, held the publication of news to be its sole function; while the _Boston Gazette_, the _New York Gazette_, and the _Maryland Gazette_ took much the same attitude. In the main, they were rather dreary reprints of stale European news. Bradford's _American Weekly Mercury_, in Philadelphia, gave somewhat more attention to local news; but with the exception of the Franklin-Breintnal _Busy-Body_ papers, contributed in 1728-1729 in order to bring Keimer to his knees, the _Mercury_ gave very little attention to the entertainment function. Only the _New England Weekly Journal_, carrying on something of the tradition of the old _Courant_, dealt largely in entertainment as well as in news. This bi-functional policy was the one adopted by Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_, which was always readable and amusing at the same time that it was newsy. Of the editorial or opinion-forming function of newspapers there was little evidence in Franklin's paper,[i-173] at least in the field of politics. The obvious reason was the active governmental censorship. It remained for John Peter Zenger to introduce that function into colonial journalism in the _New York Weekly Journal_ in 1733: his struggle for the freedom of the press is well known.[i-174] But the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ never became in any degree a political organ while Franklin edited it; and his first political pronouncement was published not in his paper but in a pamphlet, _Plain Truth_, issued just before his retirement from editorial duties.