William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.

...the liberty of the Press is called the Palladium of Freedom, which means, in these days, the liberty of being deceived, swindled, and humbugged by the Press and paying hugely for the deception.

There is a power in our land, irresponsible, corrupt and malicious—‘the press,’ which has created the intense feelings of hostility that has arrayed the two parts of the country against each other, which must be curbed and brought within the just limits of reason and law, before we can have peace in America. We can deal with armies who have a visible and tangible existence, but it will require tact and skill and courage to clip the wings of this public enemy.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

The essence of American journalism is vulgarity divested of truth.

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

While they shriek for "freedom of the press" when there is no slightest threat to that freedom, they deny to citizens that freedom from the press to which the decencies of life entitle them. They misrepresent, they distort, they color, they blackguard, they lie.

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.

I deplore with you, the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them.... As vehicles of information, and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless, by forfeiting all title to belief.

If we shake the pillar of a free and objective press, we're harming our American national interests.

The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself

Reporters were all part of the war effort. They went along with it, and not only that, they abetted it.…It is in the things not mentioned that the untruth lies.…They wrote only a part of the war

What you say about the newspapers is very true ... They are indeed a curious compound of truth and untruth. I am so used to newspaper nonsense and attacks that I do not mind it in the least....

The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news.

Today the greatest evil—and therefore the most immediate—is the press.

You or any fair man, looking back on the history of our own country for the past forty years must admit, that the Press has gradually intensified he feelings of mutual jealousy and hatred between the North and the South till war not only resulted, but was bound to result. You see yet the Press of each Section, instead of healing the gap, is vigorously widening it.

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.

Some people will say that words like ‘scum’ and ‘rotten’ are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

As long as I am Attorney General, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail.

There is a permanent war between journalists and the political classes.

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

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.

Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.