Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

I believe in a free and open press; people have to cover the presidency, respect the office and its current occupant. And we need it to be a two-way street.

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

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

The press should form a fortress of steel round the republic. The republic has a right to demand this from journalists. The struggle is not over; the press has a duty to convey this truth to the nation and safeguard its unity.

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 press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them.

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.

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. But there is a competing interest, and that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that may be absolutely essential to assist them in the investigation of illegal wrongdoing. And so you've got these two competing interests. I believe that the current policy at the Department of Justice reflects a careful balancing of those interests.

It's very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don't seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it.

The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.

Newspapers, television networks, and magazines have sometimes been outrageously abusive, untruthful, arrogant, and hypocritical. But it hardly follows that elimination of a strong and independent press is the way to eliminate abusiveness . . .

The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.

The job of the press is to defend their institution, hold the government accountable and freely report and gather information.

I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that.

There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.

I do worry about the press and a President Trump. You know, I think it's dangerous the entire de-legitimization that he's engaged in against all of the media because the people, as much as it's fun to hate us, they do need us. You know, they need good, strong skeptical journalists to be covering whoever it is, whether it's Barack Obama or President Donald Trump.

The country is in some trouble, because the media, which is supposed to provide a check and balance on government, has decided to stop doing that as a collective entity.

So that all the people who say, you know, "All the media hates America." A lot of the media does hate America but this is a case of, actually, the press doing its best, I think, to do the right by national security. So good for them.

As journalist, I'm responsible to the American people, not to the military of the United States.

In the founding days of the Constitution, the purpose of the media was to make sure that powerful government officials were held accountable. It really was. I mean, it was founders who hated the media like everybody else hates the media, but they understood the role they played. This media long ago when it comes to Hillary Clinton/Bill Clinton and the Democrat Party? No, no, no, no. They're the Democrat Party now. There is no media.

I believe democracy requires a 'sacred contract' between journalists and those who put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works.

No matter how many media for the dissemination of news are created, there is one rule that should never be broken:TELLTHE PEOPLE!

Regardless of all of the ways that the media have changed in recent years, one thing that will never go out of style in America is the ability of a free press to keep the public accurately and honestly informed about its government.

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault.

The tragedy of journalism is that these are people doing their best work.