Jonathan Alter Quotes

I think sometimes we lose sight of how powerful we are when we put someone on the news - for good or bad. It can really change people's lives.

It's not a very good idea to make an enemy of anyone who buys ink by the barrel.

The media is the message and the messenger, and increasingly a powerful one.

Public opinion can be influential, the media can be influential.

I think it's my interaction with journalists that has pegged me more as political than my actual records, although they have obviously political aspects to them as well.

The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

I was not afraid of the press or the militants. It was uncomfortable, but I was not afraid. With respect to the press, I knew I knew more than they knew about city matters. With respect to the militants, I understood it. I mean, everybody believed in those days that they were being screwed, you know, that somebody was getting ahead of them.

Nixon, who spent much of his career attacking the press and saying he was a victim of the press, was in fact created by the press, in this case the L.A. Times.

The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don't print matter a lot.

The healthy presidency is one that never lets the press hustle the President's priorities.

Journalism is now not only reflecting what is happening, it is affecting what is happening. Governments all over the world watch CNN.

My God, how the electronic media have changed how I have to do my work … the decision making process changes when we’re live on CNN. We give up how we do things when we’re live.

Every successful president has suffered imputations that he has in sinister fashion charmed the press or used a new medium of communication (radio, television, the Internet) to claim an undeserved standing.

Theodore Roosevelt owes more to newspapers than any other man of his time, or possibly of any other time.

Trump has taken it to a new level. He is now viewing the media as the 'opposition party,' in his own words. Consequently, media coverage of Trump has become that much more significant.

It's hard not to look at the road of the media and how the media is a big part of painting a picture for public opinion.

You often forget, because you're so inside it, that television has power.

One thing that is fairly undeniable about Trump - love him or loathe him - is his understanding of how to manipulate the media and to perpetuate a symbiotic relationship with the press.

Anyone who magnifies the power of a television talk show is very unrealistic.

Trump loves the media. Trump understands the power it has and, accordingly, loves the people who have media power.

I'd like to say I'd like to be as big as a Gwen or a Madonna, but I think those days of achieving that level are over. The media is bringing everybody down.

The media did not make Donald Trump, and they can't destroy him.

The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy.

The media can make boxers, controls who makes it big and who doesn’t. They can build up fighters or knock them down.