Media Activism Quotes

Many newspapers have become players as well as spectators in the political debate.

I know some really outstanding Turkish journalists, and have been pleased and honored to be able to join with them a few times in their courageous protests against state terror and repression.

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

The media is done, they don't do journalism anymore, it's activism, nothing more, right?

It's very important that we give a voice to the voiceless in terms of media; because media is a global phenom and it portrays you dependent upon what controls you have and the writers are doing great work.

I'm writing a film. With our access to these powerful media, we're going to take over, because it's really disgusting what is put out there now to be consumed.

Listen, in the same way that politics and government allow people to engage in large issues, media does the same.

You have to draw lines between being a journalist and an activist.

I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest.

if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.

After Watergate, which happened when I was in college, I became increasingly inspired by journalism as a way to change the world. It sounds corny, but to wake the public up, to serve a higher cause.

I've realised that as long as the youth has the ability to use social media and their voice is there, people can actually cut through the nonsense and see what's really going on. People are live streaming from the ground, so everyone's starting to become more aware. When you pull back from this playground of duality, where someone is right and someone is wrong, you recognise that this is the way things have played out for years and years. And as long as the youth culture can see the madness that's going on in the world, there will eventually be a revolution.

Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do.

I definitely feel that films and TV shows can bring about social change.

I certainly don't mean to suggest that all investigative journalism prior to 9/11 in the US was praiseworthy. But there were more examples to which one could point, and there were at last some activist photographers who understood that getting information into the public sphere in spite of military censorship was a right and obligation within democracy. That strain in war journalism did nearly vanish during that time.

We don't push back hard enough against the government. We could use, the country in general could use a more adversarial press corps, especially when it comes to matters of national security.

As a philanthropist, I give away a lot of money every year. Yet I thought there was a higher leverage to come in and create movies and TV shows that were actually able to do some good in the world.

The fights for media justice and racial justice have been intertwined since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

We need to take on the new media, and in terms of power and public pedagogy, we need to organize a whole range of people outside of the academy.

In the last two years we've seen a sea change in the United States on media issues. Two years ago, people would have read this, then opened the window on the ledge of the 18th floor and jumped. They would have said, "Okay, it's over, there's nothing I can do, it's just getting worse." But in the last two years, what we've seen is that millions of Americans have gotten aware of the issue, they've organized on it, they've risen up, and we're seeing the beginnings of a burgeoning media reform movement across this country.

I am incredibly proud of the many journalists I have worked with throughout my career and the great campaigns that we have fought and won.

If I wanted to make something that actually made a difference roughly in this industry, I would make a documentary. That would be the closest I could come to actually try and make a difference.

BE THE MEDIA is uplifting and empowering.

When you believe in what you are doing, when you are seeking justice for the killing of Daniel Pearl, when you want to alert public opinion to the plight of the massacred people of Darfur, or in the recently martyred former Soviet republic Georgia, it makes more sense to use the media than to work in silence.

At a moment when people are losing faith in their ability to participate in politics and make themselves heard, the media can play a critical role in reversing that sense of alienation.