Graham Norton Quotes

What the right-wing in the United States tries to do is undermine the press.

We should never have any political or religious organization filter our news.

Progressives know there is something very wrong when a nation divided politically has one major network operating as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists.

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.

Whether it's Baidu or Chinese versions of YouTube or Sina or Sohu, Chinese Internet sites are getting daily directives from the government telling them what kinds of content they cannot allow on their site and what they need to delete.

Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.

I think it is very difficult today to have a reasoned public discourse on any controversial subject. Certainly, election years present a complicating factor.

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.

But for the media to name their coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq the same as what the Pentagon calls it — everyday seeing 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' — you have to ask: 'If this were state controlled media, how would it be any different?'

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

Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.

Press critics worry that the rise of media polarization threatens the foundation of credible, common information that American politics needs to thrive.

Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.

I think Michael Moore is loathsome, though, not because he dislikes Bush, but because he seems to dislike America.

The rules are all wrong today. The mandate of the media really does pre-date the founding of the United States.

War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.

This trend of reporting process over substance is unfortunate, if omnipresent. Even worse is the media's inability - or unwillingness - to fact-check Republicans who are angry about the Democrats trying to debate and vote on Iraq policy.

Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

The media in America has become so cowed and compromised.

Because I have an opinion, I have become public enemy number one to the Fox News Channel and the right wing.

I think the media loves taking the most absurd clips for a sport that has become congressional politics.

The right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.

Maybe it is the media that has us divided.

The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.

In a hyper-capitalist environment dominated by media giants, the means available to independent journalism have narrowed considerably.