Jefferson believed in a free press while having nothing but contempt for journalists and newspapers, which is basically the correct view. He also told them “shut up” but in more eloquent ways:

🔹“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle…I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.”

🔹“A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of Newspaper lies, serves like headlands to correct our course. indeed my scepticism as to every thing I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.”

🔹“From 40. years experience of the wretched guesswork of the newspapers of what is not done in open day light, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, & almost never worth notice.”
https://www.monticello.org/the-art-of-citizenship/the-vitality-of-a-free-press/quotes/