Sam Donaldson Quotes

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

Media play a powerful role in establishing and perpetuating social norms.

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.

Whoever controls the media—the images—controls the culture.

The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and schools.

The Washington press corps is all too often the Praetorian Guard of the left.

Contrary to right-wing mythology, the press was not an institution dominated by leftists but a creature of the very richest of the rich and mightiest of the mighty in American society.... While the press shaped mass opinion, it reflected elite opinion.

Newspapers form public opinion, but public opinion also influences newspapers. The general masses are not like horses that can be tamed and trained to do their masters bidding.

The primary purpose of the media is to mobilize support for the controlling interests.

Creating a fan base of both fervent feelers and fanboys, Trump magnificently played off many fawning commentator's insecurities - using the deep desire to be liked or noticed by Trump as a method to keep their criticism of him tamped down.

If you look at the New York Times, it says X; if you look at the Washington Post, it says the same thing. And if you turn on any television newscast it's the same thing you already heard, that's research. And that's one of the ways it's done. Authority ends up being imputed simply because of volume. I mean, all of these different news organizations reporting the exact same thing.

Most of the outrage comes from not the public, but from the media, the press and writers.

It doesn't matter who the candidates are. It doesn't matter the campaign. You know that's gonna happen. The Washington Post is gonna do it, the New York Times is gonna do it, the three networks gonna do it, CNN's gonna do it, MSNBC gonna do it, all the newspapers are gonna do it. For the vast majority of them. There are some exceptions. That sameness ends up being its own authority. If everywhere you look in the media tells you the same thing, you don't have to research.

Asking the question whether the mainstream media has a liberal or conservative bias is like asking whether al Qaeda uses too much oil in their hummus. I might think they use a little bit too much oil; some people might think it's a little dry. But the problem with al Qaeda is they want to kill us. And the problem with the mainstream media is that it has these other biases that are much more important.

A big part of my book deals with the caliber of journalism. Our journalism in general is deplorable, and on elections in particular it's very ineffectual. There are a lot of problems, a lot of them having to do with to problems within the professional code of journalism, which defines its role as the regurgitation of what people in power say. Another big problem is that we allow people with money to basically buy what's talked about in campaigns through running TV ads.

The establishment can accept being screwed, but not being laughed at

The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight. Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humor.

Politicians, you know Harry Reid hates you. We get it. But when somebody from "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post" is saying this stuff, that's different, that's offensive, that's wrong.

The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the "best" sources.

If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own.

I don't believe, folks, that the media people you see on TV every day from NPR to CBS to ABC to NBC to wherever are ever gonna admit they're irrelevant, and they're not gonna start acting like it, and they're never gonna say, "Gee, you know what? We might have to alter the way we're -" It isn't gonna happen, even if it means the end of them.

The media—stenographers to power.

As always, most media aligns with the presumptive winner even though their claimed societal virtue is to investigate those in power.

The New York Times does an unbelievable amount of damage because every day television and radio stations along with the rest of media take their lead on the way the news should be presented along with what actually is the news.

Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.