Hugo Black Quotes

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

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

A free press may be good or bad, but without freedom a press can only be bad.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

We believe that the remedy to any harm resulting from press freedom lies in press freedom itself.

… the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of 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 and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

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

Of all times in time of war the press should be free.

We must have a free press. If we are to maintain democracxy as we know it, we must have a free and adversarial press.... That's how dictoators get power [by intimidating, restriciting and censoring the press.]

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

Journalism is irrepressible. It can't be taken away.

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

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

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.

A free press can of course be good or bad, but most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad.

The press must be free; it has always been so and much evil has been corrected by it. If Government finds itself annoyed by it, let it examine its own conduct and it will find the cause.

Democracy without a free press is inconceivable.

Pakistan is an anomaly in the Islamic world, in the sense that there is a free press, which is amazing. I can't think of another Islamic country where the press is so free….one cannot claim that there is no fear. There is fear, but more and more people are saying what they want to say

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.

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.

We journalists in America take it for granted that we are not going to be killed for our work. Unfortunately, this is not true elsewhere in the world.

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.

So far as the Constitution goes .. the press is free to do battle against secrecy and deception in government. But the press cannot expect from the Constitution that they will succeed…. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act or an Official Secrets Act.

There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly TERRIBLE to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS.

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