Jesse Helms Quotes
There is no lie too improbable, no distortion too great, no smear campaign too dirty for the State Department and the media to embrace.
Jesse Helms, 1914-2008, U.S. Senator (Republican, NC), Quoted in Newsweek, August 18, 1986
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The queen was a lot more sophisticated about the newspapers than politicians in the 21st century.
Even as late as the 1970s most media organizations did not feel any inhibition about having a spokesperson for a political movement or candidate comment about statements that were clearly untrue. The constant political criticism of the media produced this change and no matter how absurd or false a political statement is, most media will have a spokesperson for the lie appear on the program to repeat the lie. Both political parties are thereby encouraged to exaggerate or even lie as they will never by exposed by trusted journalists and can reduce all falsehoods to a “he says, she says.”
Ailes suggested plan was not implemented by President Nixon. However. Ailes, an arch conservative who has always believed the media was biased against conservatism, later implemented his idea very successfully. This idea was the intellectual forerunner" to Fox News, which Ailes launched as a "fair and balanced" news network in 1996. The Nixon Administration however, concerned about the extremes of many of his recommendations finally fired him, which turned out to be very positive for Ailes career thereafter.
Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. was an American journalist, media executive, and politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001 he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates.
