Thabo Mbeki Quotes

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.

The back and forth between the press and government is essential to any good democracy.

In hindsight, Watergate was a curse as well as a blessing for American journalism. The courageous reporting of the 'Post' and the 'New York Times' - coupled with the favourable Supreme Court rulings on publication of the Pentagon Papers - were landmarks for the interpretation of First Amendment rights and the freedom of the press.

Well, thank God for a media that will ask questions.

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

What has been adjudicated and established in the wake of Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement is the ability of the press to basically write or broadcast almost anything about the government. There's very few restrictions in that way.

The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views.

[Drew] Pearson and [Walter] Winchell are a high price to pay for freedom of the press, but I guess you've got to do it.

… no court was going to penalize a newspaper criminally for showing how the government had lied, particularly when the government’s own papers proved it.

The media is in our country is free. Do you see what they write against me?.... They have a right to criticize the government…. I did not come in through bullets—they elected me

There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.

The media is fully fine and hunky-dory with the idea that they may destroy somebody, and they think that's part of the job description. But you turn around and criticize them, and that's not permitted in the vacuum in which they live. They have free rein over you, because I guess this is how they define their constitutional responsibility. And since they have constitutional recognition, somehow they've all been taught at journalism school that nobody may assail them, that nobody may criticize them.

A free press is the immune system of representative democracy.

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.

Without freedom of the press, there can be no representative government.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

When freedom of the press is threatened, the United States should be leading efforts to protect it.

The Defense Department's plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment.

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

The liberty of the Press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman.

Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society.

Every diminution of the liberty of the press is followed by a diminution of civilization. Wherever we see the freedom of the press interfered with, there we see the nutrition of the human family interrupted.

Except for politics, no business is scrutinized more exhaustively than journalism.

The press is like the air, a chartered libertine.

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.