H. L. Mencken Quotes

The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government.

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

What would this country be like without the press prying to find out what the government is doing?

Democracies die in darkness.... I don't realluy think that President Trump really believes that the press is the "enemy of the people"

If we don't have a vigorous questioning, aggressive journalistic community and mythology, democracy itself is in great jeopardy.

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

The task of the media in a democracy is not to ease the path of those who govern, but to make life difficult for them by constant vigilance as to how they exercise the power they only hold in trust from the people.

The media does play a vital role in our democracy, and if we cannot depend on journalistic ethics, the nation's in trouble.

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.

Thank God we have a press that tells us what you guys are doing.

The first duty of the Press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation.

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

This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that.

Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.

Holding our own government to account for the use of its power is, in my view, the highest mission of a U.S. news organization.

Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.

Being a reporter is at the very core of a democracy, being a free person in a free society.

The media are much better at keeping politicians honest and accountable. They are not willing to look the other way as they sometimes have in the past.

The fourth estate which if not well looked to, will turn us all out of doors.

It is the business of the journalist … to stand in permanent Opposition.

The best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.

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 media helps keep government honest.

The most important newspapers in this country need to exist. Our democracy needs them. Life as we know it would be unthinkable without them.

I'm not a critic, I'm a journalist. I'm doing my job holding the government to account.