Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and least tolerable infringement on First Amendment Rights. — Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 1976)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

We conclude that public figures and public officials may not recover for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of publications such as the one here at issue without showing, in addition, that the publication contains a false statement of fact which was made with 'actual malice,' i.e., with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether or not it was true. This is not merely a 'blind application' of the New York Times standard, see Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 390 (1967); it reflects our considered judgment that such a standard is necessary to give adequate "breathing space" to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. — William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States (Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 1988)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The dissemination of the individual's opinions on matters of public interest is for us, in the historic words of the Declaration of Independence, an 'unalienable right' that 'governments are instituted among men to secure.' History shows us that the Founders were not always convinced that unlimited discussion of public issues would be 'for the benefit of all of us' but that they firmly adhered to the proposition that the 'true liberty of the press' permitted 'every man to publish his opinion'. — John Marshall Harlan II, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Curtis Publishing Company v. Butts, 1967)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I think the conviction of appellant or anyone else for exhibiting a motion picture abridges freedom of the press as safeguarded by the First Amendment, which is made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth. — Hugo Black, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression. — William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 1966)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Writing for a newspaper is like running a revolutionary war; you go into battle not when you are ready but when action offers itself. — Norman Mailer, The Presidential Papers

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

War correspondents ... see a great deal of the world. Our obligation is to pass it on to others. — Margaret Bourke-White

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

A journalist is basically a chronicler, not an interpreter of events. Where else in society do you have the license to eavesdrop on so many different conversations as you have in journalism? Where else can you delve into the life of our times? I consider myself a fortunate man to have a forum for my curiosity. — Bill Moyers

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it. — John Hersey

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

A journalist is stimulated by a deadline; he writes worse when he has time. — Karl Kraus

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I’ve always had standards about writing well. There is art in this business. There is potentially great art. — Gay Talese

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I rise today to support the efforts of citizens everywhere to protect free speech on the Internet. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments to determine the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act [CDA], which criminalizes certain speech on the Internet. It is because of the hard work and dedication to free speech by netizens everywhere that this issue has gained the attention of the public, and now, our Nation's highest court. I have maintained from the very beginning that the CDA is unconstitutional, and I eagerly await the Supreme Court's decision on this case. — Jerrold Nadler, United States House of Representatives ("Free Speech on the Internet", Congressional Record, March 19, 1997)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The Press is at once the eye and the ear and the tongue of the people. It is the visible speech, if not the voice, of the democracy. It is the phonograph of the world. — William Stead, 1886

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment. — Charles Lamb, 1833

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

When journalese was at its rifest the Ministry of Health was established - possibly a coincidence. — John Galsworthy, 1924

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Never forget that if you don't hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one. — Arthur Brisbane, c. 1900

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Experience has shown that newspapers are one of the best means of directing opinion - of quieting feverish movements - of causing the lies and artificial rumours by which the enemies of the State may attempt to carry on their evil designs to vanish. In these public papers, instruction may descend from the Government to the people, or ascend from the people to the Government; the greater the freedom allowed, the more correctly may a judgment be formed upon the course of opinion - with so much the greater certainty will it act. — Jeremy Bentham

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

They used to say a man's life was a closed book. So it is but it's an open newspaper. — Finley Peter Dunne, 1902

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom - it's gone. — Edward R. Murrow, December 31, 1955

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The liberty of the press ... consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this is to destroy the freedom of the press; but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity. — William Blackstone, (Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

[There exists a] profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. — William J. Brennan, Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 1964)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., (United States v. Schwimmer, 1929)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

All Ministers ... who were Oppressors, or intended to be Oppressors, have been loud in their Complaints against Freedom of Speech, and the License of the Press; and always restrained, or endeavored to restrain, both. — Cato's Letters, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon (Letter Number 15, Of Freedom of Speech, That the Same is inseparable from Publick Liberty, February 4, 1720)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Traditional modern liberty — the individual's freedom from government restriction — remains important. Individuals need information freely to make decisions about their own lives. And, irrespective of context, a particular rule affecting speech might, in a particular instance, require individuals to act against conscience, inhibit public debate, threaten artistic expression, censor views in ways unrelated to a program's basic objectives, or create other risks of abuse. These possibilities themselves form the raw material out of which courts will create different presumptions applicable in different speech contexts. And even in the absence of presumptions, courts will examine individual instances with the possibilities of such harms in mind. — Stephen Breyer, (Active Liberty, 2008)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live. — Stephen Breyer, (Active Liberty, 2008)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'We didn't know - no one told us.' — Robert Fisk

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

It's hard to think of important prosecutions that have not gone forward because reporters have refused to give information. On the other hand, it's hard to make the argument that freedom of the press has been terribly infringed by the legal regime that's been set up. So it may be that the Supreme Court looks at the status quo and says: "Nothing seems terribly wrong with this. People are ignoring a little bit what we said, but it seems to have results that are not too bad, from either perspective." — Elena Kagan, (Harvard Law Bulletin, 2005)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The Court said that the First Amendment forbids statutory effort to restrict information in order to help the public make wiser decisions. — Stephen Breyer, (Active Liberty, 2008)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job: who push back screens, peer behind façades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour. — John Pilger

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

A law imposing criminal penalties on protected speech is a stark example of speech suppression. — Anthony Kennedy, (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 2002)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

In our time, political speech and writing are the defence of the indefensible. — George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. — George Mason, principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth. — Massachusetts Constitution, The constitution was adopted in 1780 and is the oldest functioning written constitution in continuous effect in the world.

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. — Universal Declaration of Human Rights

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, - very momentous to us in these times. — Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History (1859)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I still believe that if your aim is to change the world journalism is a more immediate, short-term weapon. — Tom Stoppard

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. — Robert H. Jackson

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The exceptional nature of its limitations places in a strong light the general conception that liberty of the press, historically considered and taken up by the Federal Constitution, has mean, principally, although not exclusively, immunity from previous restraints or censorship. — Charles Evans Hughes, (Near v. Minnesota, 1931)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the public. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo Black

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The freedom of speech and of the press, which are secured by the First Amendment against abridgment by the United States, are among the fundamental personal rights and liberties which are secured to all persons by the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgment by a state. The safeguarding of these rights to the ends that men may speak as they think on matters vital to them and that falsehoods may be exposed through the processes of education and discussion is essential to free government. Those who won our independence had confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning and communication of ideas to discover and spread political and economic truth. — Frank Murphy

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

If somebody came from Mars to America and went around for months or years, and then you asked them who has the best jobs, they would say the journalists, because the journalists get to make momentary entries into people's lives when they are interesting, and get out when they cease to be interesting. — Bob Woodward, 2003

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever. — Oscar Wilde

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I am sure that as soon as speech was invented, efforts to suppress and control it began, and that process of suppression continues unabated. — Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr., (Speech at the University of Oregon, 2004)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Provided I do not write about the government, religion, politics, morals, people in power, official institutions, the Opera, the other theatres, or about anybody attached to anything, I am free to print anything, subject to the inspection of two or three censors. — Pierre Beaumarchais

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species. — P. T. Barnum

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Our republic and its press will rise or fall together. — Joseph Pulitzer

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Let me make the newspapers and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress. — Wendell Phillips

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo L. Black, (New York Times Company v. United States, 1971)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

“ Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. ” — Thomas Jefferson, 1787

More selected quotes More...

I mean to work for 60 Minutes, and be able to go any place in the world, do any story, have enough time on the air, et cetera, there is simply no job in journalism like it. At the beginning, it was a dream. Even now, at the age of 84, I work with people who are half my age or less, and it is the draw of the story. If there is a good story going, why not be there? — Mike Wallace, 2002

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

You go all over America and you see small papers that do really good jobs in their communities of reporting. The modern New York Times, the modern Washington Post, the modern Wall Street Journal are better papers than they were at the time of Watergate in most respects. But if you look at the rest of the field, ... real news based on the best obtainable version of the truth was becoming less and less a commodity, less and less a real part of our journalistic institutions. — Carl Bernstein, 2006

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The duty of journalists is to tell the truth. Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way. — Noam Chomsky

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

It is my view that there is no "compelling need" that can be shown which qualifies the reporter's immunity from appearing or testifying before a grand jury, unless the reporter himself is implicated in a crime. His immunity, in my view, is therefore quite complete, for, absent his involvement in a crime, the First Amendment protects him against an appearance before a grand jury, and, if he is involved in a crime, the Fifth Amendment stands as a barrier. ... And since, in my view, a newsman has an absolute right not to appear before a grand jury, it follows for me that a journalist who voluntarily appears before that body may invoke his First Amendment privilege to specific questions. — William O. Douglas, (Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

[This is] the most important question relating to the reporter's privilege: Who's entitled to claim it? When the privilege started, it was meant to cover the establishment press: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the major television networks. But as our media have become more diverse and more diffuse, the question of who is a member of the press, and so who gets to claim the privilege, has really come to the fore. Is the blogger entitled to claim it? And if the blogger is, then why not you, and me, and everybody else in the world? And once that happens, there's a real problem for prosecutors seeking to obtain information. So the question of whether you can draw lines in this area, and if so how, is the real question of privilege. — Elena Kagan, (Harvard Law Bulletin, 2005)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live. — Stephen Breyer, (Active Liberty, 2008)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

“ All speech should be presumed to be protected by the Constitution, and a heavy burden should be placed on those who would censor to demonstrate with relative certainty that the speech at issue, if not censored, would lead to irremediable and immediate serious harm. ” — Alan Dershowitz, 2008

More selected quotes More...

Controversy? You can't be any kind of reporter worthy of the name and avoid controversy completely. You can't be a good reporter and not be fairly regularly involved in some kind of controversy. And I don't think you can be a great reporter and avoid controversy very often, because one of the roles a good journalist plays is to tell the tough truths as well as the easy truths. And the tough truths will lead you to controversy, and even a search for the tough truths will cost you something. Please don't make this play or read as any complaint, it's trying to explain this goes with the territory if you're a journalist of integrity. That if you start out a journalist or if you reach a point in journalism where you say, "Listen, I'm just not going not touch anything that could possibly be controversial," then you ought to get out. — Dan Rather, 2001

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Grassroots journalism is part of the wider phenomenon of citizen-generated media - of a global conversation that is growing in strength, complexity, and power. When people can express themselves, they will. When they can do so with powerful yet inexpensive tools, they take to the new-media realm quickly. When they can reach a potentially global audience, they literally can change the world. — Dan Gillmor, We the Media

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I don't want to be part of the story. I want to be an anonymous, quiet onlooker who tries to work out what the hell is happening - its not easy - and then tells other people about it. I don't like being a figure in the thing. — John Simpson, 2007

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Today's serious nonfiction writer is important to society because from a solid background of social sciences, combined with the journalistic skills of a reporter, one moves beyond the reporter function to the front edge of our emerging society. — Betty Friedan, May 1978, 30th Anniversary Journal, American Society of Journalists and Authors

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I do not think that journalism is a dying art. If anything, I believe it is more important than ever, and journalists worldwide are adapting to our modus operandi - to make public officials accountable to the people. The role of the journalist is indispensable, and as reviled as reporters may intermittently be, they are still highly respected when the pursue the truth and obtain positive results. It is my hope that future journalists will adhere to the true principles of the profession and understand that they play a vital role in helping to keep democracy and the exchange of free ideas alive at home and abroad. — Helen Thomas, October 2005, Washington, D.C.

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

[This is] the most important question relating to the reporter's privilege: Who's entitled to claim it? When the privilege started, it was meant to cover the establishment press: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the major television networks. But as our media have become more diverse and more diffuse, the question of who is a member of the press, and so who gets to claim the privilege, has really come to the fore. Is the blogger entitled to claim it? And if the blogger is, then why not you, and me, and everybody else in the world? And once that happens, there's a real problem for prosecutors seeking to obtain information. So the question of whether you can draw lines in this area, and if so how, is the real question of privilege. — Elena Kagan, (Harvard Law Bulletin, 2005)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

It is my view that there is no "compelling need" that can be shown which qualifies the reporter's immunity from appearing or testifying before a grand jury, unless the reporter himself is implicated in a crime. His immunity, in my view, is therefore quite complete, for, absent his involvement in a crime, the First Amendment protects him against an appearance before a grand jury, and, if he is involved in a crime, the Fifth Amendment stands as a barrier. ... And since, in my view, a newsman has an absolute right not to appear before a grand jury, it follows for me that a journalist who voluntarily appears before that body may invoke his First Amendment privilege to specific questions. — William O. Douglas, (Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo L. Black, (New York Times Company v. United States, 1971)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

New York Times v. Sullivan was about the suppression of speech in the South [during the 1960s]. Today's version of suppression is just another verse of the same song. — Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr., (Speech at the University of Oregon, 2004)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth. — Hillary Clinton, United States Department of State ("Secretary of State Clinton on Internet Freedom", Office of the Spokesman, January 21, 2010)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

I confess I do not see in what cases the Congress can, with any pretence of right, make a law to suppress the freedom of the press; though I am not clear, that Congress is restrained from laying any duties whatever on certain pieces printed, and perhaps Congress may require large bonds for the payment of these duties. Should the printer say, the freedom of the press was secured by the constitution of the state in which he lived, Congress might, and perhaps, with great propriety, answer, that the federal constitution is the only compact existing between them and the people; in this compact the people have named no others, and therefore Congress, in exercising the powers assigned them, and in making laws to carry them into execution are restrained by nothing beside the federal constitution. — Richard Henry Lee, (The Federal Farmer, 4th letter, October 15, 1787)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly TERRIBLE to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS. — Samuel Adams, (Boston Gazette, 1768)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote

The liberty of the press is the birthright of a Briton, and is justly esteemed the firmest bulwark of the liberties of this country. It has been the terror of all bad ministers; for their dark and dangerous designs, of their weakness, inability, and duplicity, have thus been detected and shown to the public, generally in too strong and just colors for them to bear up against the odium of mankind. ... A wicked and corrupt administration must naturally dread this appeal to the world; and will be for keeping all the means of information from the prince, parliament, and people. — John Wilkes, (The North Briton, No. 1. June 5, 1762)

More selected quotes More at Wikiquote