George W. Bush Quotes

What I'm thinking about more and more these days is simply the importance of transparency, and Jefferson's saying that he'd rather have a free press without a government than a government without a free press.

The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

I would never say, as a member of the press, that there should be fewer press briefings. The more access, the better, no matter who is there or what's going on.

A louder government with less journalism does not enrich our democratic process.

Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know.’

A people that wants to be free must arm itself with a free press.

A free press is the immune system of representative democracy.

If it's a situation in which the public is being given access, you can't discriminate against the media and say, as a general matter, that the media don't have access, because their access rights, of course, correspond with those of the public.

Without freedom of the press, there can be no representative government.

We need a free media, not just freedom of speech.

It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

I tell you, in my opinion, the cornerstone of democracy is free press - that's the cornerstone.

The Defense Department's plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment.

Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society.

The press is like the air, a chartered libertine.

And this week, I am proposing legislation to strengthen our Open Records laws to make public access to our public records surer, faster, and more comprehensive.

In the United States, whatever you may think of Julian Assange, even people who are not necessarily big fans of his are very concerned about the way in which the United States government and some companies have handled Wikileaks.

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.

Somebody ought to do on article on you, on your damn profession, your 1st Amendment.

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.

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

Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy -- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.

… no court was going to penalize a newspaper criminally for showing how the government had lied, particularly when the government’s own papers proved it.

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.

We want the media to enjoy its right of freedom.