Mass media

"Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense — the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen" William E. Borah

"To become informed and hold government accountable, the general public needs to obtain news that is comprehensive yet interesting and understandable, that conveys facts and outcomes, not cosmetic images and airy promises. But that is not what the public demands." Eric Alterman

"The purpose of commercial [media] is to induce mass sales. For mass sales there must be a mass norm … By suppressing the individual, the unique, the industry … assures itself a standard product for mass consumption." John Whiting

"Hollywood, land of fiction and history revisionism wouldn’t produce a product of truth even if it was profitable; neither would its kissing cousins, the media and the publishing industry." Walter Grant

"Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don’t have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations… Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don’t believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees." Tom Fenton

"The press, or at least most of it, has lost the passion, the outrage, and the sense of mission that once drove reporters to defy authority and tell the truth." Chris Hedges

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world." Edward Bernays

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." A. J. Liebling

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved." Henry B. Adams

"… the media in the United States effectively represents the interests of corporate America, and … the media elite are the watchdogs of what constitutes acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content, and the general use of media resources." Peter Phillips

"The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They’re about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover." Al Franken

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." Malcolm X

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind, the medium is the message and the message is me" Jim Morrison

"Imagine the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play." Joseph Goebbels