Such relentless inhumanity forms the iceberg beneath the Guardian’s current exposé of Murdoch’s alleged payment of £1m hush money to those whose phones his News of the World reporters have criminally invaded. ‘A cultural Chernobyl’, is how the German investigative journalist Reiner Luyken, based in London, described Murdoch’s effect on British life. Of course, there is a colourful Fleet Street history of lies, damn lies, but no proprietor ever attained the infectious power of Murdoch’s putrescence. To public truth and decency and freedom, he is as the dunghill is to the blowfly. The rich and famous can usually defend themselves with expensive libel actions; but most of Murdoch’s victims are people like the Hillsborough parents, who suffer without recourse. John Pilger, article New Statesman, ‘Murdoch: A Cultural Chernobyl’
During the Cold War a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. ‘I have to tell you,’ said their spokesman, ‘that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don’t have that. What’s the secret? How do you do it?’ John Pilger, address Columbia University 14th April 2006
Freddie Starr ate my hamster. The Sun headline
The Truth: Some fans picked pockets of victims; Some fans urinated on the brave cops; Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life. The Sun, headline falsely accusing Liverpool fans of causing Hillsborough disaster in which ninety-six supporters where crushed to dead 15th April 1989
It was my decision, my decision alone, to do Page One that way, and I made a rather serious error. Kelvin McKenzie, editor The Sun, BBC Radio 4 interview 30th July 1989
cf.
The Sun did not accuse anybody of anything. Kelvin McKenzie, BBC Radio 4 interview 16th October 1996
All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. George Orwell, Why I Write
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper. George Orwell
Newspapers have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied upon. Oscar Wilde
The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective. John F Kennedy, April 1961
Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead. Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble 1956, winning The Times entry for dullest headline
The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous – licentious – abominable – infernal – Not that I ever read them – No – I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Critic, 1779
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. Thomas Jefferson
The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram. Don Marquis
A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself. Arthur Miller, cited Observer 26th November 1961
You grab a paper and there is a rush, there is adrenalin. Good God – look what we said today! It’s more than you can get out of baked beans. Tony O’Reilly, Guardian 7th September 1998
The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm. Thomas Babington Macaulay
It is wonderful how much news there is when people write every day; if they wait for a month, there is nothing that seems worth telling. O Douglas aka Anna Buchan, 1877-1948, Penny Plain, 1920
Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed. Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary, 1914
[I] never saw a foreign intervention that The [New York] Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don’t let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think The Times is liberal? John Hess, reported The New York Times
Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor’s prejudices as the advertisers don’t object to. Hannen Swaffer
If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed. Mark Twain
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information. Christopher Hitchens
A few months ago, I was sitting morosely at my desk, wondering why I had ever agreed to review Barbara Bush: A Memoir for an English newspaper. The experience was proving to be a degradation of the act of reading. Imagine, if you will, being strapped into a chair and made to listen to Liberace playing the piano for hour upon hour. Or imagine being fed chocolate dinner mints, like a hapless goose, until you are on the verge of explosion. Such was my lot. Christopher Hitchens
Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers. Christopher Hitchens
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. H L Mencken
The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer. H L Mencken
All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else. H L Mencken
The news isn’t there to tell you what happened. It’s there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear. Joss Whedon, Astonishing X-Men II: Dangerous
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets. Napoleon Bonaparte
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us. Alain de Botton
‘Don’t tell me about the Press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is.’
‘Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?’
‘Sun readers don’t care who runs the country – as long as she’s got big tits.’ Antony Jay, Yes Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon James Hacker
I brought the newspaper close up to my eyes to get a better view of George Pollucci’s face, spotlighted like a three-quarter moon against a vague background of brick and black sky. I felt he had something important to tell me, and that whatever it was might just be written on his face.
But the smudgy crags of George Pollucci’s features melted away as I peered at them, and resolved themselves into a regular pattern of dark and light and medium gray dots.
The inky black newspaper paragraph didn’t tell why Mr Pollucci was on the ledge, or what Sgt Kilmartin did to him when he finally got him in through the window. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I never read the paper myself. Why bother? It’s the same old shit day in and day out, dictators beating the ching-chong out of people weaker than they are, men in uniforms beating the ching-chong out of soccer balls or footballs, politicians kissing babies and kissing ass. Stephen King, Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales