Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
I also think the media’s presence simply raised the question: If the media could get to these places, why couldn’t the federal government?
—Barack Obama (b.1961) American Head of State, Academic, Politician, Author
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
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
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
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
Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Surely the glory of journalism is its transience.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist
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
There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director
Gravity—the body’s wisdom to conceal the mind.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
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
Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
Just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s the gospel.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
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
The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
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
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
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
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
The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform.
—George Steiner (1929–2020) American Critic, Scholar
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
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
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
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
Report me and my cause aright.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
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
Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name. If there’s a criticism to be made today, it’s that the press isn’t doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information.
—Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American Journalist, Television
There’s no business like show business.
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989) American Songwriter, Composer
Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62) American Sociologist, Academic
There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There’s nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I’ve done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom—it’s gone.
—Edward R. Murrow (1908–65) American Journalist, Radio Personality
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
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions…
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
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
Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for—they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
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
The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
Power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
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 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
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
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
—Samuel Butler