Jimmy Breslin Quotes

As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.

The perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced by a view of broadcasters as marketplace participants.

Isn't it only appropriate that, in return for the free use of the public spectrum, broadcasters provide something substantial, something that wouldn't otherwise be provided by marketplace competition?

Television was supposed to be a national park. Instead it has become a money machine. It's a commodity now, just like pork bellies.

We can continue to have a policy in which the public interest means whatever they [broadcasters and communications companies] want it to mean in order to make money. Or we can give it real meaning.

I have said, and I believe, that potentially we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or in the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse.

It's not about 'NBC is evil.' It's about that media structure - CBS, ABC, CNN, even some of the smaller operations are now multinationals, with these extraordinarily diverse holdings.

The problem that we've had is four media companies run media, globally. And some say they're on the Right and some say they're on the Left; look, they're all afraid of losing Ford as a client. So they're all, by definition, huge companies that are going to be inherently conservative.

Virtually every magazine, newspaper, TV station and cable channel is owned by a big corporation, and they've squashed stories that they don't want the public to know about.

What's happened to broadcasting is that broadcasting really used to be... it used to have a very clear public service quotient. And it's more or less now. And it's been lost.

Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.

When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.

Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

A newspaper is a public trust, and we will suffer as a society without them. It is not the Internet that has killed them. It is their own greed, it is their own stupidity, and it is capitalism that has taken our daily newspapers from us.

The ethics of editorial judgement, however, began to go though a sea change during the late 1970s and '80s when the Carter and Reagan Administrations de-regulated the television industry.

One of our greatest glories is closure of offending newspapers. Based on our assessments, by doing this, we have done the greatest service to the people

International bankers control the majority of the magazines and newspapers in this country.

Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

There is no independent American print or TV media.

Media is set up to give information to the people - at least that's what it says. But we all know in the U.S. that media is a capitalistic system, people are getting paid to write things, they have bosses and editors, and they have bosses, and they put pressure on people to write intriguing stories that catch the eye.

I'm proud to have played a major part in destroying Fleet Street, a corrupt cartel of unions and proprietors that operated against the public interest.

The difference between Rappler and other newsgroups in the Philippines is that journalists control Rappler both editorially and commercially. We make decisions that are bad for business but protect the public sphere.

All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions.

[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.

RADIO IS DEAD. The once-bright star that was public broadcasting has been destroyed by greed and corproate muscle to the point that even the music that is completely repugnant is positioned to be popular.