A DI reader named Mike Baker offered to let me publish his collection of quotes. Today, I'm publishing his quotes concerning the news media: The American mass media have achieved what American political might could not: World domination. -- Akbar S. Ahmed The safest way to ensure diversity of opinion is diverse ownership. But this ideal has been sacrificed by our government... -- Ben Bagdikian "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, 43rd President, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 “Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home.” -- Stephen Colbert I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that. -- Walter Cronkite I certainly think we have an emergency in media, and we gotta fix it. -- Phil Donahue Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. ~Anne Louise Germaine de Stael Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become. -- Amy Goodman "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" --Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of Germany 1933-1945 Since an informed citizenry is the basis for a healthy democracy, independent, non-corporate media are more crucial today than ever before -- Dahr Jamail "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -Thomas Jefferson, "Letter to Col. Edward Carrington", January 16, 1787 Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. ~ Thomas Jefferson The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--diliberate, contrived, and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. -John F. Kennedy "The news and truth are not the same thing." --Walter Lippmann, 1889-1974, American journalist "Disinformation is a large part of its[CIA] covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target of its lies." --Ralph McGehee, former CIA intelligence analyst, author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA "The result has been that an increasingly authoritarian agenda has been sold to the American people by a massive, multi-tentacled media machine that has become, for all intents and purposes, a propaganda organ of the state." David McGowan By the end of the millenium five men controlled the world's media. And the people rejoiced, because their TVs told them to. -- Michael Moore The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined. -- Bill Moyers An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too. -- Bill Moyers "Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." ~ Joseph Pulitzer "The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread...We are tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes...We are intellectual prostitutes." --John Swinton, New York Times editor in a speech before the New York Press Club, 1953 The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. -- Gore Vidal

I love to collect quotes. You'll find hundreds of them under the category "Quotes." Here is a set of quotes I've collected over the past 2 months: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire (1694 - 1778) "An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962) "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." -Michael Jordan "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) ‎"Study: An increasing number of Americans lack the reading and math skills to do anything but run for President." Andy Borowitz "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." - Plato Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980), Nausea (1938) "Vendredi" There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters. - Alice Thomas Ellis There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. - Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) Doing what you love means dealing with things you don't. - David Shore, House M.D., Last Temptation, 2011 "Of course I believe in free enterprise, but in MY system of free enterprise, the democratic principle is that there never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few." -Harry S. Truman Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. - Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938) “Get used to the idea that death should not matter to us, for good and evil are based on sensation. Death, however, is the cessation of all sensation, hence death, ostensibly the most terrifying of all evils, has no meaning for us, for as long as we exist, death will not be present. When death comes, then we will no longer be in existence.” - Epicurus “If I were wrong, one would be enough.” - Albert Einstein "... when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - Isaac Asimov belongs in Skepticism 101 "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), (attributed) "It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them." Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 - 1799) "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968)