Reply #21: Just pissed [View All]

There is no such thing, at this date, of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press...The business of the journalist is to destroy truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mannon, and to sell his country and his race 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 for rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possiblilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

--John Swinton (former Chief of Staff, New York Times, 1953)