quotations about the news media
I am not asking for government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a kind of censorship already exists when the news that forty million Americans receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and filtered through a handful of commentators who admit to their own set of biases.
SPIRO AGNEW
speech the Midwest Republican Regional Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, November 13, 1969
It is seldom safe to repeat news when our enemies are auditors.
SALLUST
attributed, Day's Collacon
The British Press is always looking for stuff to fill the space between their cartoons.
BERNADETTE DAVLIN
attributed, The Big Book Of Business Quotations
Here comes Monsieur le Beau
With his mouth full of news,
Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
Then shall we be news-crammed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Wisdom of Father Brown
News is only the first rough draft of history.
ALAN BARTH
New Republic, 1943
News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising.
LACUNA
The Motor, December 1937
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
BEN HECHT
attributed, Jewish Wit and Wisdom
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departed friend.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
JOHN MILTON
Samson Agonistes
News fitting to the night,
Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King John
Despite the variety and the differences, and however much we proclaim the contrary, what the media produce is neither spontaneous nor completely "free:" "news" does not just happen, pictures and ideas do not merely spring from reality into our eyes and minds, truth is not directly available, we do not have unrestrained variety at our disposal.
EDWARD SAID
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World
Stay a little, and news will find you.
GEORGE HERBERT
Jacula Prudentum
News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Master, master! news, old news, and such news as you never heard of!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Taming of the Shrew
When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news.
CHARLES ANDERSON DANA
The New York Sun, 1882
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
The medium is the message.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN
Understanding Media
The best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.
GEORGE W. BUSH
interview, FOX News, September 23, 2003
Some day we'll call it personal broadcasting.
NOBUYUKI IDEI
Forbes, May 2000