Robert Redford Quotes

Television is apparently the enemy of nuance. But nuance is essential for a thoughtful discussion.

I was a victim of what most people are a victim of, which is really, really just gulping down what was being fed to me by the media.

Television is democracy at its ugliest.

Television is something the Russians invented to destroy American education.

I think that reality TV is so bad. It is a tool by the media to not make people think.

Television has tremendous power over our lives.

All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?

Television is a powerful medium that has to be used for something better than sitcoms and police shows. On the other hand, if you don't recognize the forces that play on what people watch and what they don't then you're a fool and you should be in a different business.

All you see on television are debased images.

Television enjoys a de facto monopoly on what goes into the heads of a significant part of the population and what they think.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.

TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse - news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion.

The press ... is but the servant of human intellect and its ministry is for good or evil, according to the character of those who direct it. The press is a mill that grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.

The truth of television is that what people see, they believe.

The journalistic traits that are valued on TV and radio talk shows are destructive to democracy.

Television has shortened our political discourse.

Sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you—and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

If it doesn’t happen on television, it doesn’t happen.

The White House expansion to control the entire corpus of the News was the direct result of television.

Politicians used to be able to change the subject. With television they cannot do that any more.

Without television, Richard Nixon would not have a chance. He would not have a prayer of being elected because the press would not let him get through to the people.

I don't know if I trust entertainment to teach anyone anything.

In the old days, there were three networks, and all of a sudden, Walter Cronkite is the most trusted man in America. Everybody believes what he says, not even thinking. In those days, we didn't even know it was being spun. We were very willing to just listen to it and go along with.

We're learning a tremendous amount of propaganda from television and the Internet.

People have their own opinions but sometimes with the media things get chopped up and cut around to make stories out of it.