The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
A. J. LieblingRead
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
Interpretation
True freedom of the press requires ownership and control of the media.
A. J. Liebling's quote highlights a critical perspective on the concept of press freedom. It suggests that the ideals of freedom of the press can be compromised when only those with financial resources have the ability to express themselves through media ownership, thereby questioning the accessibility and equality of voice in public discourse.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about media ownership and its implications for democracy.
The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.
No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures. No ascetic can be considered reliably sane.
A city with one newspaper... is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy
A city with one newspaper, or with a morning and an evening paper under one ownership, is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
Today the logic goes something like this: 'Calling a ruler Son of God is out of style. No one really does that nowadays. We can support a president while also worshiping Jesus as the Son of God.' But how is this possible? For one says that we must love our enemies, and the other says we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance?
Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.
Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.
Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everbody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody's business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.
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