and in other news (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 11:54:29 PDT
From: Ryu Kirtz <elholff@ubgznvy.pbz>
To: ejnygba@pnapbcl.pbz, wnzny@oebamr.ypf.zvg.rqh, pinapr@yrfyvr.rqh,
    rij@jbeyq.fgq.pbz, urnyabez@rsa.bet
Subject: and in other news

"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?

"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."

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
>


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