-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Why the U.S. Media Is a Whore
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 17:38:00 +1000
From: Tony Pitt tonypitt@bigpond.com
the response by John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, when called upon to give a toast before the New York Press Club in, I believe, 1953 - although some say it was as far back as 1914.
The honest Mr. Swinton was known amongst his peers as “the Dean of his profession”, so one can only imagine the shock/horror that must have swept around the room when the assembled throng heard the following:
“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 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. 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 to an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for 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.”
Subject: Re: Why the U.S. Media Is a Whore
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 17:38:00 +1000
From: Tony Pitt tonypitt@bigpond.com
the response by John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, when called upon to give a toast before the New York Press Club in, I believe, 1953 - although some say it was as far back as 1914.
The honest Mr. Swinton was known amongst his peers as “the Dean of his profession”, so one can only imagine the shock/horror that must have swept around the room when the assembled throng heard the following:
“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 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. 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 to an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for 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.”
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Wednesday, 04/06/05
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