Sargent Shriver Quotes

I talk to the press five days a week … The president—how often does he talk to the press? His press secretary talks to the press every day, okay. But I happen to think the public should demand he should. I think he should; I think that’s his job.

Facilities have been given me here as never before, the Interstate Commerce People even offering me a desk and stenographer, with full admission to all their published reports and letters. It certainly shows how … a greater care for truth and fairness, which I have tried to attain in my articles, gets hold of people.

Every organization has men and women who will be sure that the news gets out when it is good news. The problem is with the bad news. That is the challenge of democracy

Media creates awareness [and] ensures transparency and accountability.

If the press knows about a problem, big or small, that problem is far more likely to receive the personal attention of senior policy makers, then if it remains a well-kept secret.

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

I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president.

Tell the truth.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

Television has spread the habit of instant reaction and has stimulated the hope of instant results.

If you guys would stop asking questions about the Iraq War, there would be no problem at all.

One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted.

In all my life I have treated the press with marked contempt and had remarkable success.

What would this country be like without the press prying to find out what the government is doing?

Thank God we have a press that tells us what you guys are doing.

When I talk to young people about entering government, I tell them, “Now think of the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life. Don’t tell me what it is. Now think about having it on the 10 o’clock news.”

A good politician doesn't tell you what he's going to do next.

My New Year's resolution is to make sure I genuflect appropriately before the Chicago media on everything I do.

Twenty five years in Washington has taught me never to tell a lie to a reporter.

The media are much better at keeping politicians honest and accountable. They are not willing to look the other way as they sometimes have in the past.

Leaks usually have more value to the public at large than the harm which they occasionally do.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty reasoning on policy, and vain conjectures on the public management.

Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.

If the press doesn’t get the proper care and feeding, you don’t get the proper spin on your story.