Joseph Pulitzer Quotes

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

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

Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

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

… the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people

If we shake the pillar of a free and objective press, we're harming our American national interests.

Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy -- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.

I think there are a lot of reasons to be critical of the media in America.

We need a free media, not just freedom of speech.

In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.

The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

We believe that the remedy to any harm resulting from press freedom lies in press freedom itself.

Being a reporter is at the very core of a democracy, being a free person in a free society.

The newspapers, magazines and other journals of the country, it is safe to say, have shed and continue to shed, more light on the public and business affairs of, the nation than any other instrumentality of public; and since informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment, the suppression or abridgment of the publicity afforded by a free press cannot be regarded otherwise than with grave concern.

In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever.

The journalist observes the laws of his country, but when the fulfillment of his professional duty is concerned he recognizes the jurisdiction of his colleagues only, and rejects any attempts of pressure and interference from the side of the government or whoever else.

A free press can of course be good or bad, but most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad.

Freedom of the press and a free society either prosper together or perish together.

We cannot admit that a newspaper's purpose is to share the labors of statesmanship or that it is bound by the same limitations, the same duties, the same liabilities as that of Ministers. The purpose and duties of the two powers are constantly separate, generally independent, sometimes diametrically opposite. The dignity and freedom of the press are trammeled from the moment it accepts an ancillary position.

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 fourth estate which if not well looked to, will turn us all out of doors.

A people without reliable news is, sooner or later, a people without the basis of freedom.

To-day a democrat of the old school would demand, not freedom for the press, but freedom from the press