Interestingly enough, while a printing press opening up and starting up a newspaper had to apply to the British government for permission, they could then print whatever they wanted. A good example- in the Williamsburg, VA there was one printing shop at the beginning of the 1770s owned by Alexander Purdy and John Dixon. They split in 1775 because one was a loyalist and one a patriot and they couldn't agree on what to print in their newspaper articles. Add in that Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, stole a printing press on his run out of Virginia and set up on a ship just off shore printing his own paper. They were all called The Virginia Gazette by requirement, but the rest of the content was up to them.

To receive a paper in VA you purchased a year-long subscription costing 15 shillings to have a copy delivered once a week. A few days wages for most people. They discussed not just local, but international news- necessary information for merchants and gentry. There were also advertisements and classified sections, which could really be useful to anyone. Printing shops were often also the post office and kept up with traveling news in that manner. Of course, news travels slowly. You can find a partial Declaration of Independence in Purdies paper on July 19th, a whole one in Dixons on July 20th. I'm sure they were up all night placing out the lead types and printing once the news came in from Philadelphia. As these same printing presses would have been producing all sorts of small items like playbills, stitched books, pamphlets, etc. Common Sense and the like would have been printed and distributed by them as well. It wasn't always their writing that they printed. Even at that time it was understood how important the freedom of the printing presses was and how influential they could be.