Media Quotes

“The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.”
― George Orwell

“When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Assumptions are quick exits for lazy minds that like to graze out in the fields without bother.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.”
― Glenn Greenwald, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

“Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.”
― John Berger

“Music itself was color-blind but the media and the radio stations segregate it based on their perceptions of the artists.”
― Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue

“A free press doesn't mean it's not a tame press.”
― andrew vachss

“You have to get up pretty early in the morning to invent the news.”
― Lauren Beukes, Zoo City

“The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.”
― John Berger

“FRUITS AND NUTS


Keep jumping around them like monkeys.
The clones,
Commercialized zombies,
And the TV junkies.
Keep throwing berries,
Twigs,
And nuts at them.
Until they wake up
To see what's up
And figure out why
We're laughing at 'em.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“{President] Kayibanda's government [in Rwanda] continued the persecution against the Tutsis and began to make use of the media it controlled to launch a propaganda campaign against us. In a country where more than half the people cannot read or write and very few have televisions, radio is the dominant media. The fact that some newspapers were still printing the truth didn't matter much to the part of the population that couldn't read.

Most of the literate people were already politically aware. While an educated person might question what they read or hear from the media, the uneducated tend to accept it. The uneducated are more easily affected by threats and the emotional trauma that propaganda like this can create.”
― John Rucyahana, The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones

“For how many generations now had his people been turning their backs on things? How long had they sat in their living rooms and watched other people die?”
― Clare B. Dunkle, The Sky Inside

“Ours is the century of enforced travel of disappearances. The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.”
― John Berger

“Oh, he shouldn't be surprised, he's a Marxist and has nothing but contempt for the bourgeois capitalist press, yet paradoxically he is also somehow an Americanist and a believer in Science and Freedom and History and Reason, and it dismays him to see cruelty politely concealed in data, madness taken for granted and even honored, truth buried away and rotting in all that ex cathedra trivia--my God! something terrible is about to happen, and they have time to editorialize on mustaches, advertise pink cigarettes for weddings, and report on a lost parakeet! Ah, sometimes he just wants to ram the goddamn thing with his head in an all-out frontal attack, wants to destroy all this so-called history so that history can start again.”
― Robert Coover, The Public Burning

“The media network has its idols, but its principal idol is its own style which generates an aura of winning and leaves the rest in darkness. It recognizes neither pity nor pitilessness.”
― John Berger

“Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.”
― Demosthenes

“Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why /but the editorialists forget it /terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.”
― John Berger

“Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream.”
― John Berger

“Isn’t the media supposed to keep government responsible?”
― Jameson Currier, The Third Buddha

“[T]he category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.”
― Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

“I always said I'm just an instrument; I'm transparent, like a medium, the language passes through me. Which is a bit like saying I'm a recording device, I start and I go. I had a real connection to ongoing, language production in real time.”
― Constance Dejong

“In 1994, the average person spent $79 on books as compared to $56 on recorded music.”
― Richard L. Brandt

“Today's Europeans and Americans who reached the age of awareness after midcentury when the communications revolution lead to expectations of instantanaiy are exasperated by the slow toils of history. They assume that the thunderclap of cause will be swiftly followed by the lightening bolt of effect.”
― William Raymond Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932

“The Christian should never have to put others down in order to feel good about himself. Instead, he can simply check out the media's insistent portrayal of Christianity and feel grateful that he isn't as deceived as the masses who really swallow the garbage. Ignorance is ultimately how people put themselves down, and the mere Christian who knows what entails the mere Christian is ultimately free from such.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The media feeds off of black blood like vampires. They want more of it, and they’ll pit us against each other jus’ to see it fly like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Having a hearing is educational. Having a hearing with television cameras is useful. Having a hearing with two rows of television cameras is Heaven.”
― Tim Wirth

“In my book, the media are a necessary evil: they live off the animal inside us, they bait the front pages with second-hand blood for the hyenas to snuffle up, but they come in useful enough that you want to stay on their good side.”
― Tana French, Broken Harbour

“The powerful can overpower the power of the pen but then they cannot write with water.”
― Amit Abraham

“For the reporters, the heroes of our time”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“Just as there are legal guidelines concerning the police use of provocateurs, there must be limits to how far the media can go in setting up a misleading situation ... I, for one, can simply not accept that telling a lie is an acceptable way of reporting the truth... Every poll of public opinion shows that there is a suspicion among the general public that the media do not tell the whole truth, or that they distort things, or that they exaggerate, or that they are biased.”
― Peter Robinson (australian)