You may wonder why I don't try to advertise. Well, I may be forced to if
this website catches on. For now, we're OK. However, newspapers, as a rule,
must kowtow to the people who pay the freight....the advertisers. Usually
the wealthy.
The following words were forwarded to me by my friend, Edwin Gravitt, and
though they are fifty years old, they are still true. They were written
by a former Chief of Staff of The New York Times. With TV "journalism"
added, they're more true than ever. Thanks, Edwin.
" Free Press?"
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an
independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who
dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand
that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest
opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar
salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to
write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job."
There's more:
"If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper,
before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the
journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify;
to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread.
You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent
press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We
are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents,
our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes."
John Swinton, former chief of staff of the New York Times, in a speech to
the New York Press Club, 1953
Ed. Note: "Bias", a book written by Bernard
Goldberg, formerly with CBS News, echoes similar sentiments.