It seems to me that just in the ratio that our newspapers increase, our morals decay. The more newspapers the worse morals. …
[T]he public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private…
I know from personal experience the proneness of journalists to lie. …
[T]hrough the absence of all wholesome restraint the newspaper has become in a large degree a national curse, and will probably damn the Republic yet.
Mark Twain, License of the Press, from Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1852-1890 (Library of America 1992) at p. 551. You’d have to substitute “cable news” for “newspaper” today.
Comments on this entry are closed.