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Quotes about journalism

52 quotes from 38 people

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If one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of self-respect, the feeling for what is elevated, he could do no better than take the American newspapers.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888Civilization in the United States (1888), p. 177
- America
One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Hind Swaraj (1909), Sect. 1
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to George Washington (9 September 1792)
- Government
Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins.
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Night and Day (1978), Act I
- Freedom
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
Graham Greene1904–1991Letter to critic Stephen Pile, The Sunday Times (London, 18 January 1981)
- Writing
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 Vidal1925–2012“Cue the Green God, Ted” (1991).
- America
If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Malcolm X1925–1965Speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem (13 December 1964), later published in Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (1965), edited by George Breitman, p. 93
I believe the media can be the greatest force for peace on Earth. Instead, all too often, it is wielded as a weapon of war. That has to be challenged.
Amy Goodmanborn 1957Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America (2016), Introduction
- War & Peace
I don’t perceive my role as a newsman at all. I’m a comedian from stem to stern.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964When asked what he perceives his role to be, given that many young people claim to get their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, on newsman.”Harvard University: A Conversation with Stephen Colbert” (1 December 2006).
- Humor
You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better.
William Tecumseh Sherman1820–1891Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)
- Truth & Lies
Minimum information given with maximum politeness.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis1929–1994Instructions to press secretary Pamela Turnure; Quoted in A Hero for Our Time (1983) by Ralph G Martin
I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.
Aneurin Bevan1897–1960Interview in The Times (29 March 1960), p. 7
- Clever Jabs
To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 21
- Clever Jabs
Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries — but it is a force stronger than crime.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988This I Believe: Our Noble, Essential Decency (1952)
- Virtue
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.
Evelyn Waugh1903–1966Scoop (1938)