Fourth estate is a name often given to the newspaper profession. Among the members of the fourth estate are those who gather, write, and edit the news for the press. Some people use the term to refer to journalists in all news media.
The phrase fourth estate is believed to have first been used in writing by Thomas Babington Macaulay. In 1828, he wrote in an essay, “The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.”
Macaulay was adding a term to those already used for the three estates, or classes, of the English realm. These were lords spiritual, lords temporal, and commons. The three estates later came to stand for government, while reference to a fourth estate described any other influential body in English political life, such as the army or the press.
