Politics and the Pressby: JimCSun Sep 12, 2010 at 08:45:36 AM EDT |
Short diary, but offered as a brief diversion from your pre-primary scrambling. I was looking for something else the other day when I came across this collection of quotes on journalism.
"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." Thomas Jefferson (1786) And perhaps the most famous from TJ: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Thomas Jefferson (1787) In 1797, Jefferson became Vice President. "To the press alone, checquered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression." Thomas Jefferson (1799) In 1801, he became President. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. ... 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 falsehood and errors." Thomas Jefferson (1807) More at the link, and not all of it grim. I liked this one. "Journalists should be people in whom there is at least a flicker of hope." Sen. Paul Simon |