Press Quotes

“Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. An honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, that she refused to stand with them when they were wrong — or just stood up for something she felt was right. And also, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always trust your heart. If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to her.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“She can't keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it'll get boring.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent.”
― Gore Vidal

“The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.

With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”
― Henry Wallace

“People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.”
― Amin Maalouf, The First Century After Beatrice

“Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.”
― A.J. Liebling

“To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.”
― Claude Adrien Helvetius, Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and His Education V1

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press.”
― Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

“Not enough,” Annie said. “The press is crawling down my throat for this. And up my ass. Both directions, Venkat! They’re gonna meet in the middle!”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“We…realized that no matter who won the race, we were girls, and we were from Soso, Mississippi, population 434, which meant we were destined to be last in pretty much everything else.”
― Karen Hinton, Penis Politics: A Memoir of Women, Men and Power

“My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“The brains of members of the Press departments of motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.”
― John F. Kennedy

“In short, whoever does violence to truth or its expression eventually mutilates justice, even though he thinks he is serving it. From this point of view, we shall deny to the very end that a press is true because it is revolutionary; it will be revolutionary only if it is true, and never otherwise.”
― Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death: Essays

“The image of the journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the journalist as the life of the party.”
― Nora Ephron, Wallflower at the Orgy

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“But newspapers have a duty to truth,' Van said.
Lev clucked his tongue. 'They tell the truth only as the exception. Zola wrote that the mendacity of the press could be divided into two groups: the yellow press lies every day without hesitating. But others, like the Times, speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary.'
Van got up from his chair to gather the cast-off newspapers. Lev took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. 'I don't mean to offend the journalists; they aren't any different from other people. They're merely the megaphones of the other people.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”
—Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807
[Works 10:417--18]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Works of Thomas Jefferson. Including The Jefferson Bible, Autobiography and The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Illustrated), with Notes on Virginia, Parliamentary ... more.

“Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer.”
― Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker

“We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It's interesting when people die -
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry”
― Don Henley

“The press was ruthless, but then so was the church.

Flavia de Luce”
― Alan Bradley, Speaking from Among the Bones

“The Press. -- If we consider how even to-day all great political transactions glide upon the stage secretly and stealthily; how they are hidden by unimportant events, and seem small when close at hand; how they only show their far-reaching effect, and leave the soil still quaking, long after they have taken place; -- what significance can we attach to the Press in its present position, with its daily expenditure of lung-power in order to bawl, to deafen, to excite, to terrify? Is it anything more than an everlasting false alarm, which tries to lead our ears and our wits into a false direction?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human 1-2

“The ability of a free and independent press to hold political leaders accountable is what makes open government possible—it is the heartbeat of democracy. Trump is intent on stilling, or slowing down, that heartbeat. This is a gift to dictators, and coming from a chief executive of the United States, cause for shame.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“This 'vampire' stuff is to stay right in this room. Until we have the assailant in custody we say nothing about these girls being drained of blood. No more rumors. No reports in the papers," he added, looking directly at me and ignoring my colleague from the opposition press. "The official opinion at this time is that the cause of death is 'undetermined and under investigation'. We don't want to start a panic. It's bad for police operations. It's bad for the people. And it's had for business.”
― Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker

“The power of the press consists in the fact that every individual who serves it feels only slightly pledged or bound to it. He usually gives his opinion, but sometimes does not give it, in order to help his party or the politics of his country, or even himself....a man who has money and influence can turn any opinion into the public one. Whoever realises that most people are weak in small things, and wants to attain his own purposes through them, is always a dangerous human being.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Sin confianza en la verdad no había influencia. Daba igual que se tratara de los políticos o de la prensa: si no se podía creer en ellos, no contaban,”
― John Galsworthy, SWAN SONG

“Sin confianza en la verdad no había influencia. Daba igual que se tratara de los políticos o de la prensa: si no se podía creer en ellos, no contaban.”
― John Galsworthy, A modern comedy. 3 Swan song Volume 3 1929 [Leather Bound]

“Yes; we are becoming the slaves of a mercenary and irresponsible press, - of one single newspaper.”
― Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

“People should understand one thing, nowhere is a journalist, what you see on your TV or Mobile screen, most of them are poor daily wages worker,”
― Mohammed Zaki Ansari, "Zaki's Gift Of Love"

“And I kept screaming, as the cameras kept flashing," [Mamie] wrote, "in one long, explosive moment that would be captured for the morning editions.”
― Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till