James Forrestal Quotes

Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule. That's why my hero, admittedly a flawed one, is a journalist.

The media is like the terrain and weather. It is a fact; it's nothing you can change. You have to learn to deal with it. And it isn't bad or good, it's just there. I don't think we should put limits on the press, unless it's for security reasons or for reasons of risk in the case of an operation. We value freedom of the press. It's something we are fighting for. It's part of the constitutional rights that we swear our allegiance to. We just have to accept it and learn to deal with it in a right way, and give and take.

The press, that distinguished appendage of public liberty … has been invariably prostituted …

The chief danger which threatens the influence and honor of the press is the tendency of its liberty to degenerate into license.

The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity of the press.

I have tried to write about this matter without any improper bias, but of course we are all cowards about newspapers who tyrannize over us all.

I think the 'New York Times' would rather be offended than dead.

Now everybody is questioning everything, so it's up to journalists who really care about the truth to fight for their corner of the truth and journalistic freedom.

Some of the press who speak loudly about the freedom of the press are themselves the enemies of freedom. Countless people dare not say a thing because they know it will be picked up and made a song of by the press. That limits freedom.

I am a passionate believer in freedom of speech. I would not support anything which would impinge on aggressive robust freedom of the British press, but when things go wrong and there has been outright illegality, there should be proper accountability.

I'm not going to make general comments about the British press.

A free press can of course be good or bad, but most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.

Freedom of the press, printing, publication and mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship on newspapers is forbidden as well as notifying, suspending or cancelling them by administrative methods. In a state of emergency or in time of war a limited censorship may be imposed on the newspapers, publications and mass media in matters related to public safety or purposes of national security in accordance with the law.

The 1st Amendment does not mandate that the press be accurate.

For thirty years the press has ceased to exist in Turkey. There are indeed newspapers, many of them even, but the scissors of censorship cut them in so emasculating a manner that they no longer have any potency. If I dare, I would call them gelded newspapers or rather, to keep the local color, eunuchs.

A free press may be good or bad, but without freedom a press can only be bad.

We do not want to interfere with the freedom of press.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

The Ecuadorean and Latin American press is not like the European or North American press, which has some professional ethics. They are used to being above the law, to blackmail, to extort.

The British press are a group of unremitting scumbags. And sometimes they use that scumbaggery to good ends, and often not.

I think there are a lot of reasons to be critical of the media in America.

Although I may find the type of programming seen during the 2004 Super Bowl and the 2003 Golden Globe Awards disgusting and disturbing, we must always work hard to defend the cherished freedoms so clearly outlined in our Constitution, including a healthy and free press.