Mass media

"If we may say that the Age of Andrew Jackson took political life out of the hands of aristocrats and turned it over to the masses, then we may say, with equal justification, that the Age of Television has taken politics away from the adult mind altogether." Neil Postman

"[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. […] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining." Neil Postman

"As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to televising, its ideas of truth move with it." Neil Postman

"It is not entirely true that a TV producer or reporter has complete control over the contents of programs. The interests and inclinations of the audience have as much to do with the what is on television as do the ideas of the producer and reporter." Neil Postman

"Assemble a mob of men and women previously conditioned by a daily reading of the newspapers; treat them to amplified band music, bright lights...and in next to no time you can reduce them to a state of almost mindless subhumanity. Never before have so few been in a position to make fools, maniacs, or criminals of so many." Aldous Huxley

"When the masters of industry pay such sums for a newspaper, they buy not merely the building and the presses and the name; they buy what they call the "good-will"- that is, they buy you. And they proceed to change your whole psychology - everything that you believe about life. You might object to it, if you knew; but they do their work so subtly that you never guess what is happening to you!" Upton Sinclair

"Swine flu was the first epidemic that was not spread by viruses, but by journalists. It quickly became clear that it was far less dangerous than our old winter flu - that most people were therefore unsuspecting and stupidly participating in the scaremongering by the pharmaceutical industry. Even the most responsible journalists usually lack a sense of proportion. We should keep this in mind: The great killers of humanity are hunger, malaria, AIDS, contaminated drinking water and road traffic." Wolf Dietrich Schneider

"The public debating chamber is at the heart of democracy. However, it can only fulfill its function if it is intact in the sense you mentioned. Since the media constitute the public debate space in the first place, they must be designed in such a way that they do not distort it in favor of powerful interest groups. By their very nature, corporate media cannot perform such a task, as their integration into economic power structures almost inevitably makes them an instrument with which powerful economic lobby groups can covertly introduce themselves into the public debate." Prof. Rainer Mausfeld

"The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money." A. J. Liebling

"People accept the facts which come to them through existing channels. They like to hear new things in accustomed ways. They have neither the time nor the inclination to search for facts that are not readily available to them." Edward Bernays

"For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day." Walter Lippmann

"While most people in TV, radio, and the press have treated me wonderfully, some of the most important people want to pretend I don't exist." Harry Edson Browne

"The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is - it's got to be more government." Harry Browne

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media." Noam Chomsky