Posted by
Geek Perspective on Sunday, August 10, 2008 8:00:00 PM
John Swinton, former chief of staff, New York Times, when called upon to give a toast before the New York Press Club (1953) said this:
"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 write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know 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 in the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalist 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, so what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings, we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes"