James A. Garfield Quotes

Given what the media have put the country through this past decade, it must come as a surprise to most Americans that the press has a code of ethics.

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

The media is like the terrain and weather. It is a fact; it's nothing you can change. You have to learn to deal with it. And it isn't bad or good, it's just there. I don't think we should put limits on the press, unless it's for security reasons or for reasons of risk in the case of an operation. We value freedom of the press. It's something we are fighting for. It's part of the constitutional rights that we swear our allegiance to. We just have to accept it and learn to deal with it in a right way, and give and take.

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

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.

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

It’s always a danger when an institution like the press becomes disconnected from the people.

The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself

The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?

I have never quite grasped the worry about the power of the press. After all, it speaks with a thousand voices, in constant dissonance.

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

As far as the media is concerned, I wouldn't shoot anything down.

I am not here to accuse the media of anything.

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that.

I happen to believe that any legitimate news organization in the world would do that interview. And if the United States is going to be a proponent of a free press, it has to walk the walk.

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.

I apologize for what the media has done.

The concept that the press is an organ of government policy dies hard.

The Constitution does not guarantee objectivity of the press …. The question … is not whether news shall be unprejudiced but rather whose prejudices shall color the news.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.

Freedom of the press, printing, publication and mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship on newspapers is forbidden as well as notifying, suspending or cancelling them by administrative methods. In a state of emergency or in time of war a limited censorship may be imposed on the newspapers, publications and mass media in matters related to public safety or purposes of national security in accordance with the law.

For thirty years the press has ceased to exist in Turkey. There are indeed newspapers, many of them even, but the scissors of censorship cut them in so emasculating a manner that they no longer have any potency. If I dare, I would call them gelded newspapers or rather, to keep the local color, eunuchs.

I have tried to write about this matter without any improper bias, but of course we are all cowards about newspapers who tyrannize over us all.

I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. That we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. […] power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.

The fact that there aren't more restrictions on the media is disgraceful.