Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.

From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in the open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice.

What you say about the newspapers is very true ... They are indeed a curious compound of truth and untruth. I am so used to newspaper nonsense and attacks that I do not mind it in the least....

A newspaper may somewhat arrogantly assert that it prints "all the news that's fit to print." But no newspaper yet has been moved to declare at the end of each edition, "That's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite does.

I think if you look at the statistics and you deal with fake media - and fake media and distorted media is a continuum - the vast majority of the population says, "I don't know what to believe." There are no checks and balances in quality control.

Giving the same value to fiction as to fact in the interest of so-called fairness is to mislead the American people and the press has become party to that.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

Journalism, as practiced by some, has become something akin to professional wrestling—something to watch rather than believe.

So you're from the press? Well, your newspapers can all go to hell. You lied yesterday and you're getting ready to lie again today. Go climb down my back.

[Getting the truth in the New York Post has been as] difficult as finding a good hamburger in Albania.

They are evil people, the press, the media, they are bad people, and nobody, nobody lies like they do.

Well, except for ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, the Washington Post, and about another 100 newspapers, I find little evidence of liberal bias in the media.

...the indispensable requirement for a good newspaperman - as eager to tell a lie as the truth.

The media, folks, is no good. They're no good - very dishonest.

From the essay "Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again" 1. Journalists sometimes make things up. 2. Journalists sometimes get things wrong. 3. Almost all books that are published as memoirs were initially written as novels, and then the agent/editor said, This might work better as a memoir. 6. Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.

The media are very dishonest. In fact, in covering my comments, the dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people - the fake news. They dropped off the word "fake." And all of the sudden, the story became, the media is the enemy. They take the word "fake" out, and now I'm saying, oh, no, this is no good. But that's the way they are. So I'm not against the media. I'm not against the press. I don't mind bad stories if I deserve them. And I tell you, I love good stories, but we won't - I don't get too many of them.

The New York Times, they lie. They lie like I've never seen anything.

Folks, Brian Williams isn't the exception. He's exactly what they've taught us to expect from them all. It's not journalism any more - it's entertainment, it's celebrity, it's agendas and it's money. All too often, a lie is now an acceptable way of communicating. To the media, a lie has as much value as the truth.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.

The New York Times, they lie. They lie like I've never seen anything. They know they're lying. One of these guys wrote a story - Rutenberg, Jim Rutenberg, a story. Literally they'll do whatever they have to do. He practically they insinuated... they'll lie and tell whatever they have to say. These are vicious people. These are lying people, and fortunately I can defend myself.

The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do - and I hope we can correct it. Because there's nobody I have more respect for - well, maybe a little bit but the reporters, good reporters.

This impressed me when I was the editor of the Sunday Times [of London] - we had the "Bloody Sunday" killings of 13 unarmed civilians by British paratroopers. We interviewed 500 people for our report, and not one of them could give us a total picture of what was happening. It was like the Rashomon effect multiplied a million times. For a website or even a newspaper to be a collector of information flow is not the highest form of journalism.

The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.

The media claimed to be non-partisan, centrist. It's not been that way for a lot of history.

A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.