William Randolph Hearst Quotes

The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.

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

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

There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

How united would the United States be without its newspapers?

I think in many aspects the press does amazing things and helps a lot of people.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

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.

The force of the newspaper is the greatest force in civilization.... [Newspapers] declare wars ... make and unmake statesmen.

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

Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.

We journalists tell the public which way the cat is jumping. The public will take care of the cat.

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

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

I read the papers like everybody else, so I don't complain about what they print.

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.

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks.

Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins

The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news.

There is no weapon stronger than the press.

Today the greatest evil—and therefore the most immediate—is the press.

There are comrades without elementary knowledge of politics, and this brings them to entertain absurd ideas, such as the idea that we live in a time where critical journalism remains a necessity.

The papers feed the public interest but then the public interest demands more in the press and speculation can look like fact.

When you lose power, then all of a sudden, the press are lions. When you have power, the press are lambs.

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