I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context. The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.
—Carl Bernstein (1944–73) American Journalist, Writer
A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad… . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The media network has its idols, but its principal idol is its own style which generates an aura of winning and leaves the rest in darkness. It recognizes neither pity nor pitilessness.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
TV cassette players will take ever-bigger bites out of the regular TV-viewing audience, moviegoers, sports and other event-attending spectators. Cassette players are now the hottest thing on the entertainment scene since popcorn… Movie cassettes are improving the margin of profit for more and more Hollywood hits that don’t at the box office. And of course, there is the home video camera… The only limitation is the viewer’s time. And there, my friends, is the rub of the matter. With only one pair of eyes and a 24-hour day, tape-popping addicts have less and less time for going out to pay to see things.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities—life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked.
—Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) Singaporean Statesman
All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.
—William Bernbach
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
—Samuel Butler
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
The Media is an abstraction (because a newspaper is not concrete and only in an abstract sense can be considered an individual), which in association with the passionlessness and reflection of the times creates that abstract phantom, the public, which is the actual leveler… . More and more individuals will, because of their indolent bloodlessness, aspire to become nothing, in order to become the public, this abstract whole, which forms in this ridiculous manner: the public comes into existence because all its participants become third parties. This lazy mass, which understands nothing and does nothing, this public gallery seeks some distraction, and soon gives itself over to the idea that everything which someone does, or achieves, has been done to provide the public something to gossip about… . The public has a dog for its amusement. That dog is the Media. If there is someone better than the public, someone who distinguishes himself, the public sets the dog on him and all the amusement begins. This biting dog tears up his coat-tails, and takes all sort of vulgar liberties with his leg—until the public bores of it all and calls the dog off. That is how the public levels.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
For the very first time the young are seeing history being made before it is censored by their elders.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
We’ve uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not-too-distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business.
—Jimmy Carter (b.1924) American Head of State, Military Leader
You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll; on plastic clay and leather scroll, man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, and lo! the Press was found at last!
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
If Thomas Edison invented electric light today, Dan Rather would report it on CBS News as, “Candle making industry threatened”.
—Newt Gingrich (b.1943) American Politician
There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe… the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that particular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters—there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void. That’s why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of the presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers wthout government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
It seems to me curious, not to say obscene and thoroughly terrifying, that it could occur to an association of human beings drawn together through need and chance and for profit into a company, an organ of journalism, to pry intimately into the lives of an undefended and appallingly damaged group of human beings, an ignorant and helpless rural family, for the purpose of parading the nakedness, disadvantage and humiliation of these lives before another group of human beings, in the name of science, of “honest journalism.”
—James Agee (1909–55) American Journalist, Poet, Screenwriter, Film Critic
The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
—Learned Hand (1872–1961) American Judge, Judicial Philosopher
There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, ‘How dull is the world today!’ Nowadays he says, ‘What a dull newspaper!’
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Advertising is legalized lying.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
—A. J. Liebling (1904–63) American Journalist, Press Critic
The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
Increasingly, the picture of our society as rendered in our media is illusionary and delusionary: disfigured, unreal, out of touch with reality, disconnected from the true context of our life. It is disfigured by celebrity, by celebrity worship, by gossip, by sensationalism, by denial of our societies.
—Carl Bernstein (1944–73) American Journalist, Writer
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant’s bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great words of wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
To eat these things, said my uncle,
You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what’s solid,
but you must spit out the air!
And as you partake of the world’s bill of fare,
that’s darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (1904–91) American Children’s Books Writer, Writer, Cartoonist, Animator
The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money’s sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal.
That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Gravity—the body’s wisdom to conceal the mind.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers another.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Author, Writer, Humorist
Just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s the gospel.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.
—Maureen Dowd (b.1952) American Columnist
It is a seldom proferred argument as to the advantages of a free press that it has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing.
—Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American Journalist, Television
The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.
—Christopher Lasch (1932–94) American Historian, Moralist, Social Critic
The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
No news at 4:30 a.m. is good.
—Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) First Lady of the United States, Conservationist
The real news is bad news.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director