Media-ocracy

"The press ... traditionally sides with authority and the establishment."

- Sam Donaldson (ABC correspondent)

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"To keep information from the public is the function of the corporate media."

- Gore Vidal

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"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
(editor of the New York Tribune, in the 1880s, at a banquet of his fellow editors)

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"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. "

- Edward Bernays
("father" of modern public relations (PR), on government propaganda)

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"They just don't come in contact with people not in their [income] bracket. They've lost touch with their community."

- Stan Opotowsky (of ABC News, about the journalistic elite)

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"The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first.... The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war."

Then the few will shout even louder.... Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it...

Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies...and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception."

- Mark Twain


INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership