What is the significance of the fourth estate?

In medieval society, society was structured into classes called estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. With Gutenberg’s invention, the written word became powerful, so the fourth estate was the press. Edmund Burke of the mid-1700s British Parliament used it referring to a reporters’ gallery. The fourth-estate became prominent in the United States when the Constitution of the new republic was draft in 1787 and Amendments were put in place. The government was divided into branches: legislative, executive, judicial. The First Amendment was that the government should not interfere with the press. This led to the press being informally called the fourth branch of government. Their job was to monitor the other branches of government and serve as a watchdog. The press kept tabs on the “rascals in power to keep them honest.”