Fred W. Friendly Quotes


A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.


Citations

Dowd, Maureen. "A Writer for The New Yorker Says He Created Composites in Reports." The New York Times, 19 June 1984, p. A1.

Related Quotes

This quote comes from Goebbels' text "Churchill's Lie Factory" and is believed to be the paraphrased source of the commonly misattributed quote in {583627}.


This sentiment was apparently first expressed by the English Calvinist Minister, Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892.


After the Constitution had been ratified, there was a concerted attempt on the part of the Southern Slave States to minimize the importance of the Declaration of Independence. They feared that the equality principle in the Declaration should be seen by Americans as desirable policy which clearly meant slavery was untenable. There were three approaches all used by the Southerners. First, they tried to make it clear that the Declaration had no weight in American law or moral principles as it was superseded by the Constitution. Second, they claimed that it could only have applied to white men as Black males were not really men. Third, that the statement was patently false. This quotation illustrates the latter.


The then CIA Director, Allen Dulles, fostered a practice of “adjusting” intelligence reports to support ideological policies and theories that were then in vogue. The agents in the field knew what was wanted and many adjusted their reports to coincide with the overall intelligence and policy. The station chiefs and other supervisors often ignored reports of their agents that they knew were not exactly accurate. Copeland however, just fabricated reports and “information” from sources. The honesty and integrity of the CIA intelligence operations have varied from time to time and depended much on the CIA Director at the time. Allen Dulles, though brilliant and able, fostered an ideological intelligence agency. He even went so far as to lie to the President on several occasions.


Fred W. Friendly
Fred W. Friendly
  • Born: October 30, 1915
  • Died: March 3, 1998
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Producer

Fred W. Friendly was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now. He originated the concept of public-access television cable TV channels.