In 1751, the Sherborne Mercury, one of the first regional papers in the West Country, reported the loss of a vessel near Porthleven on 18 March:

Thus begins one news account of a wrecking event, illustrating an evolving representation of the wrecker as someone who was less than human – a ‘folk devil’. To appreciate the development of the wrecking myth and its solidification into popular consciousness, we need to consider the role of the press, the public pronouncements of the clergy, and the didactic function of the novel. Not only were these practices important to spread information and news, they also had an impact in influencing societal mores and shaping identity. Although the language of the Sherborne Mercury article was particularly hostile, its author applied metaphors and reporting conventions commonly employed to describe wrecking events in many parts of the country, not just in Cornwall. Therefore, sensationalist reporting by the media, as also the tone of comments by the clergy, was a factor in mythologising the wrecker as a ‘folk devil’ and a source of ‘moral panic’. Although the myth of the Cornish wrecker was in existence before the advent of the eighteenth century, it is in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that popularisation of the motif gained momentum. The modern uses of such sources, without taking into account their historicity and bias, solidified the myth in shipwreck accounts of the twentieth century.

The press's influence in popularising the rapacious wrecker image began in the early eighteenth century after regional printers gained freedom to establish provincial newspapers. Of importance to the West Country, and especially to Cornwall, was the Sherborne Mercury, which began printing in 1737. It was not rivalled for Cornish news coverage until the establishment of the Royal Cornwall Gazette in 1803 and the West Briton in 1810. With the boom in provincial newspapers, literacy levels also increased.