Finley Peter Dunne Quotes

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.

Many newspapers have become players as well as spectators in the political debate.

Burke said there were three estates in Parliament; but in the reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.

Acting upon everybody for 30 minutes in 24 hours, the press is asked to create a mystical force called Public Opinion that will take up the slack in public institutions. The press has often mistakenly pretended that it could do just that.

The front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are very important in shaping what other people think. They're like writing a memo to the White House.

Every newspaper lives by appealing to a particular public. It can only go ahead of its times if it carries its public with it. Success in journalism depends on understanding the public.

To say that the newspaper press represents public opinion is to administer insult to intelligent men. It is the property of speculators, political leaders, large contractors and railway directors.

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

Newspapers at that time did not necessarily try to flatter those in power. Rather, they wrote to please readers. I may sound evasive. but there certainly existed some kind of mechanism that aggravated the situation through subtle interactions between newspapers and the public. Readers were waiting for articles reporting the exploits of the victorious Imperial Forces, Newspapers indulged themselves in a competition to appear more patriotic and to see who could print the most articles urging and exalting victory. Newspaper companies cooperated through the dispatch of entertainers, calls for patriotic songs, campaigns for contributions to build more airplanes, and various other ways. The heavy responsibility that the newspapers bear is second only to that of the government.

Newspapers form public opinion, but public opinion also influences newspapers. The general masses are not like horses that can be tamed and trained to do their masters bidding.

In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world. They reflect the deeds and the pursuits of diverse peoples and kindreds. They both reflect them and make them known. They are a mirror endowed with hearing, sight and speech. This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behooveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiment of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing.

The newspaper is in all its literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct

Whatever may be said about the power of the press, it is undeniable that it can set the entire public thinking and talking about any topic ...

I think sometimes the recording of each act which has gone into the perpetration of some crime simply gives new suggestions to less fertile minds. I realize that crimes are "news," but I wonder if they could not be very briefly recorded, leaving out as much detail as possible and by doing so it might be easier for the arm of the law to proceed in unsolved crimes. The public is, of course, to blame, for apparently there is a curious fascination for many people in the reading of all these gruesome details. Is there no way that the public for its own protection can be induced to forego some of this particular type of reading matter?

the 'public' - a term often used in America to indicate the great metropolitan newspapers.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

The function of government is to provide you with service; the function of the media is to supply the Vaseline.

Greeley does the thinking for the whole West at $2 per year for his paper.

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

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

The Press, which is mostly controlled by vested interests, has an excessive influence on public opinion.

Ever since Gutenberg, every dynasty, every political leader, every major religion, has recognized that to control the media is to have a powerful instrument for controlling the values and behavior of a population.