"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America,
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 opinion 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. 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 journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright,
to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, 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?
|
(l-r) David, Winthrop, John D. III, Nelson
& Laurance |
"We are the tools and vassals of 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."
Brother John Swinton
Chief of Staff, New York Times
(considered "the Dean of his Profession" by his peers)
When asked to give a toast at the New York Press Club in 1953