A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society…. A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.

Lippmann frames press freedom not as a perk granted by government but as a structural requirement of modern mass life. In a large, densely interconnected society—what he calls a “big and complicated urban society”—citizens and officials must rely on mediated information to coordinate action, check power, and form workable public judgments. The claim implies that as societies scale up and become more complex, informal face-to-face knowledge and local rumor are no longer sufficient; institutions that gather, verify, and circulate news become part of the social “organism.” The quote also hints at Lippmann’s broader concern with how publics are informed and how democracy depends on reliable channels of communication.