It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
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 (1924–2024) 39th US President, Humanitarian
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
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, Author, Historian
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
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
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
There’s no business like show business.
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989) Russian-born American Composer, Songwriter
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
Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.
—Graham Greene (1904–1991) British Novelist, Short Story Writer, Playwright
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 most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902) British Victorian Novelist, Essayist, Critic
Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
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 Journalist, NYT Columnist
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
The very hirelings of the press, whose trade it is to buoy up the spirits of the people. have uttered falsehoods so long, they have played off so many tricks, that their budget seems, at last, to be quite empty.
—William Cobbett (1763–1835) English Journalist, Social Reformer
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
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
People write negatives things, cause they feel that’s what sells. Good news to them, doesn’t sell.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Gravity—the body’s wisdom to conceal the mind.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
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
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
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 Humorist, Journalist, Creator of “Mr. Dooley”
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
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