Question

Was Paine an objective and unbiased reporter?

Answer 1

Answer:  No.  Thomas Paine was NOT an objective and unbiased reporter.

Thomas Paine's approach in writing Common Sense was not intended to be that of an "objective reporter."  He was strongly opinionated and was striving to persuade others to join with him in supporting American independence from the British.

In his influential pamphlet, published in 1776, one of Paine's arguments was  that hereditary monarchy went against "common sense."  If a king gained power through some sort of election process, then all future kings in the kingdom should have to be elected -- not simply inherit the throne.  And if a king had gained his power by conquest over another king, then hereditary succession was already interrupted and no longer valid.  So the whole notion of kings handing their power down to their children in a dynasty was an illegitimate idea, not really how things are in truth.  Thus hereditary monarchy should be considered an illegitimate form of government.

Even more directly to the point of American independence, Paine argued strongly that the British monarchy acted abusively toward the colonies.  Indeed, people came to the New World from Europe because they sought escape from tyrannies in their home countries.  Paine wrote: "Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster."  Then he added specifically in regard to how the British treated the colonies:  "It is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”

Answer 2

Paine had a big voice during the American Revolution.

He was not an objective and unbiased reporter.

Paine found himself outcast and poverty-stricken in his final years.