Anthony Fantano Quotes

I think that Twitter and YT and blogs are keeping media more honest. Everyone can be a journalist now. Everyone is a fact checker.

The cliche was always that 'everybody's a critic,' but it becomes truer every day. Long before reviews appear in the traditional outlets, you can now usually discover - somewhere in the thickets of the Internet - reactions to shows from people who've seen them in previews.

Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy—even when it blows heavy.

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations …. A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

Web 2.0 is a grand utopian movement. It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone--even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us--can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 "empowers" our creativity, it "democratizes" media, it "levels the playing field" between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is "elitist" traditional media.

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

In the old world, people used to have to go to focus groups and ask people what they thought. Now, people are writing all over the Web what they think about things.

I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.

Yes, I am very outspoken on Twitter.

Wikileaks is a democratizing force. Its giving individuals access to decisions and thinking by their representatives and in a democracy that ought to be reflexive.

Transparency is key to reciprocal accountability, which we use to be both free and smart. It is the miracle tool that enables us to question the lies of monsters.

I won't criticise anyone else's statements, and the public will make up their own minds. And if the public think that any side or any individual has strayed too far away from what's expected of public representatives, then they'll make that judgement.

I think the world is much more transparent now, and I think that's probably a good thing. On the other hand, I think it makes it really tough for people who are natural born leaders who could be guiding us and leading our countries.

People are so sick of these Twitter tirades. They want leaders they can be proud of.

It's a wonderfully democratic method, publishing a text on the Internet.

We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.

What makes our country unique is its commitment to being open, to making its leaders accountable.

I think reviews have lost a lot of their importance now because of the Internet; everyone is experiencing things at the same time.

We are a government that does its homework and listens to the public.

The things I have to say on and off the record are important, and I say them because I want to be heard.

Every person with a phone is a critic.

In a democracy, you need to have a strong judicial system. You need freedom of speech, you need art, and you need a free press.

Nobody will have control of the media in the future, because user-generated content is going to become the major content.

I want people to be able to give their voice.

What I was excited about was the opportunity for punters to be part of politics. The whole idea was to allow the voices of people outside this weirdo palace of Westminster to be heard. I thought the whole social media thing might be really positive.