NEWS QUOTES II

quotations about the news media

I don't give a damn what the media critics say. It's what your readers say. If you haven't got any readers, you're only talking to yourself.

RUPERT MURDOCH

attributed, Good Times, Bad Times


For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.

ENOCH POWELL

The Guardian, December 1984


The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.

JOSS WHEDON

Astonishing X-Men: Volume 2


The power of the press is very great but not so great as the power of suppression.

LORD NORTHCLIFFE

Daily Mail, 1918


Bad news drives out good news. The irrational is more controversial than the rational. Concurrence can no longer compete with dissent. One minute of Eldridge Cleaver is worth ten minutes of Roy Wilkins. The labor crises settled at the negotiating table is nothing compared to the confrontation that results in a strike ... normality has become the nemesis of network news.

SPIRO AGNEW

speech the Midwest Republican Regional Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, November 13, 1969

Tags: Spiro Agnew


Today's journalism is obsessed with the kinds of things that tend to preoccupy thirteen-year-old boys: sports, sex, crime, and narcissism.

STEVEN STARK

Atlantic Monthly, September 1994

Tags: Steven Stark


The press is owned by an oligarchic corporate elite which makes sure that any critique of them is never broadcast over the airwaves.

CHRIS HEDGES

"The Pathology of the Super-Rich"


News is like fish, it should be made use of before it becomes stale.

ANNIE E. LANCASTER

attributed, Day's Collacon


Let the greatest part of the news thou hearest be the least part of what thou believest, lest the greatest part of what thou believest to be the least part of what is true.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Enchiridion Institutions

Tags: Francis Quarles


Believe it or not, I think the downfall of our press today was the show 60 Minutes. Up until it came along, news was expected to lose money, in order to bring the people fair reporting and the truth. But when 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on television, the light went on. The corporate honchos said, "Wait a minute, you mean if we entertain with the news, we can make money?" It was the realization that, if packaged the correct way, the news could make you big bucks. No longer was it a matter of scooping somebody else on a story, but whether 20/20's ratings this week were better than Dateline's.

JESSE VENTURA

Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!

Tags: Jesse Ventura


Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807

Tags: Thomas Jefferson


It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

The Story of the Malakand Field Force

Tags: Winston Churchill


The proper presentation of the news bears about the same relation to the whole field of happenings that a painting does to a photograph. The photograph might give the more accurate presentation of details, but in doing so it might sacrifice the opportunity the more clearly to delineate character.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

speech, January 17, 1925

Tags: Calvin Coolidge


All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.

GEORGE ORWELL

Why I Write

Tags: George Orwell


Good news stops to take breath on the road; bad news never requires it.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book


Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

SOPHOCLES

Antigone

Tags: Sophocles


There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: Kobo Abe


Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news.

ANONYMOUS

The Fourth Estate: A Newspaper for the Makers of Newspapers


Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers another.

G. K. CHESTERTON

All Things Considered

Tags: G. K. Chesterton


The media ... is like an oil painting. Close up, it looks like nothing on earth. Stand back and you get the drift.

BERNARD INGHAM

speech, February 1990