Mahathir Mohamad Quotes

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.

We need a free media, not just freedom of speech.

One of the unsung freedoms that go with a free press is the freedom not to read it.

I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

People do not have the right to stir up riots and racial hatred, encourage mass hysteria or heap abuse on religion any more than they do to rob, rape, cheat or kill.

The press must be free; it has always been so and much evil has been corrected by it. If Government finds itself annoyed by it, let it examine its own conduct and it will find the cause.

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.

What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition that would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion …. Its [the press's] security … must altogether depend on public opinion.

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

The fact that there aren't more restrictions on the media is disgraceful.

The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants.

Nobody from the administration has officially rejected my column.

It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

It is without doubt that freedoms of the press and speech need to be protected, but there are undisputed limits to these freedoms, limits that often come into play when national security is threatened.

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

You can't stop people printing what they want to print.

I'm not a big fan of regulation: anyone who likes freedom of the press can't be.

There's hardly any governmental censorship in Korea.

If I want to ban any newspaper, I will, with good reason.

Routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press is dangerous.

We have got to make sure there is proper independent scrutiny and accountability for people in the press, just as there should be in any other industry where things go wrong. But let's not try and think it is for politicians or governments to tell people what they stick in newspapers. That is deeply illiberal.

I was for many years myself a journalist and it is not appropriate to say a programme should not be broadcast.

People may be due the benefits of a democratic electoral process. But in the United States, content curators appropriately have a First Amendment right to present their content as they see fit.

A free and truly independent press - fiercely independent when necessary - is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.