In Leigh Hunt's career, the step most significant in its far-reaching effects was the establishment of _The Examiner_.[18] Its professed object was the discussion of politics. It contained, in addition to foreign and provincial intelligence, criticism of the theatre, of literature, and of the fine arts. Full reports were given of the proceedings in Parliament. At different times, various series of articles appeared, such as the _Essays on Methodism_ by Hunt, and _The Round Table_ by Hunt and Hazlitt. Fox-Bourne says that previous to Hunt's _Examiner_ there had been weeklies or "essay sheets" such as Defoe, Steele, Addison and Goldsmith had developed, and that there had been dailies or "news sheets" which gave bare facts, but that _The Examiner_ was the first to give the news faithfully in essay style.[19] It soon raised the character of the weeklies. During the first year the circulation reached 2,200, a large number at that time. Carlyle said: "I well remember how its weekly coming was looked for in our village in Scotland. The place of its delivery was besieged by an eager crowd, and its columns furnished the town talk till the next number came."[20] Redding says "everybody in those days read _The Examiner_."[21]
The prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary journalism:[22]
"mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and quite as feeble in criticism. You are invited to a literary conversation, and you find nothing but scandal and commonplace. There is a flourish of trumpets, and enter Tom Thumb. There is an earthquake and a worm is thrown up.... The gentleman who until lately conducted the THEATRICAL DEPARTMENT in the _News_ will criticise the Theatre in the EXAMINER; and as the public have allowed the possibility of IMPARTIALITY in that department, we do not see why the same possibility may not be obtained in POLITICS."
Then followed a declaration against party as a factor in politics: party, it was declared, should not exist "abstracted from its utility"; in the present day every man must belong to some class; "he is either Pittite or Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberforcite or Burdettite; though, at the same time, two thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason call themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites."[23] Although _The Examiner_ thus firmly announced its intentions, nevertheless in the heat of political contest it soon became the organ of a group of men known as "reformers," who were laboring and clamoring for constitutional and administrative improvement. It became the avowed enemy of the Tory party and its journals, and in particular of the ministry during the long Tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself.