Richard Ben Cramer Quotes

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

If there's one thing that everyone can agree on, it's that, right or wrong, they hate the press.

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.

When you lose power, then all of a sudden, the press are lions. When you have power, the press are lambs.

The job of the press is to defend their institution, hold the government accountable and freely report and gather information.

I have never quite grasped the worry about the power of the press. After all, it speaks with a thousand voices, in constant dissonance.

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.

People think I've got a problem with the press. Actually I have no problem with the press, but just like in football there are a handful who cause problems because they're disrespectful, they're lazy, and above all - and this is what really gets to me - they haven't worked hard to get there.

The most important responsibility we have as journalists is to question those who are in power. I honestly believe that.

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.

Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.

With the press there is no 'off the record.'

I happen to believe that any legitimate news organization in the world would do that interview. And if the United States is going to be a proponent of a free press, it has to walk the walk.

I respect the press. The press and the media are a very useful watchdog to check the power of the government.

We in the media should be breaking the news and not making the news.

The concept that the press is an organ of government policy dies hard.

How united would the United States be without its newspapers?

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

The first duty of the Press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation.

Journalists follow authority as sharks follow a liner, dining on the scraps that are thrown overboard.

I will not have New York Times muck-racking the President of the United States.

Past occurrences have generally shown that there hasn’t been satisfaction from politicians in the manner they were covered [by the press.]

The press are the representative of the people and they have a right to know, but they don’t have the right to know right now…. There is an art to telling the truth slowly.

The relationship between the press and the president is always inherently bad; it's never good.

The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself