Pauline Kael Quotes

So ultimately, it's idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way it controls things, and go on doing their own things.

Coal companies have a lot of power in the media, and unfortunately a lot of information doesn't get out.

Capitalism and people who control the market have a large hand in everything. It doesn't have anything to do with figuring out what the crowd wants to hear. It has to do with the media deciding what they think people want to hear.

Very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears and reads than most people know.

Keep in mind, the news media are not independent; they are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class-the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn't want you to know something, it won't be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up.

Virtually every magazine, newspaper, TV station and cable channel is owned by a big corporation, and they've squashed stories that they don't want the public to know about.

You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.

And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations.

The corporations and the media don't need power; they already have it.

As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.

For a long time, censors have been cutting my works. This makes me so sad, because many times they will tell me, 'Television won't like, so we have to cut, cut, cut!'

Having a few companies controlling everything we read, see or hear is destroying our culture.

I'm sure in a lot of publishing houses that there is a frustration that people feel, that they're not in control, that they are puppets and the corporate bosses are manipulating the strings.

The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.

In the corporate-owned media, men dressed like Ronald Reagan and women dressed like Rita Hayworth disseminate grotesque exaggerations and gossip in authoritative tones.

Power in America today is control of the means of communication.

The President [FDR] is willing to take what Congress will give him and Congress will give him only what big business is willing that he should have.

If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

People are starting to wake up to the fact that a media/political party-complex basically decide our candidate, then create the illusion for the rest of us that in fact we're the ones who did the deciding.

Whoever is in charge of the artist will always have the upper hand. They act like it's the artists' world, but it's the other way around, so they're going to do whatever they want to do.

...the mass media. What are they? They're huge corporations, massive corporations, linked up with even bigger corporations. They sell audiences to other businesses, namely advertisers. So when you turn on the television set, CBS doesn't make any money. They make money from the advertisers. You're the product that they're selling, and the same is true of the daily newspaper. They're huge corporations, selling audiences, potential consumers, to other businesses, all linked up closely to the government, especially the big media. What picture of the world do you expect them to present?

The handful of corporations that own most of the media outlets have an interest in reflecting establishment views.

But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life.

It seems to me like a perversion of talent for an artist of any kind to further the corporate structure of America or the personal interests of the morons and thieves who run it.

... the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.