QUOTES
“Charity
is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social
order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don’t
go hungry, unschooled or sick without care. Charity depends on the vicissitudes
of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.”
“I
believe democracy requires a ‘sacred contract’ between journalists and those who
put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works.”
“Free and responsible
government by popular consent just can’t exist without an informed public.”
The
Interfaith Alliance has to become an ongoing sustaining and powerful movement
whose interest is to prove that religion has a healing side as well as a killing
side, and that democracy is the consequence of conscience
The
quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.
an
unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information
and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind
and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight,
ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies,
that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.
Some
journalists are stubbornly pursuing the truth despite growing monopolies, government
secrecy, ideology, and public relations spin doctors—but it’s getting tougher.”
A profound transformation is happening. The framers of our nation never imagined
what could happen if big government, big publishing, and big broadcasters ever
saw eye-to-eye in putting the public need for news second to their own interests—and
to the ideology of free-market economies.
The
corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people
a quarter of a century ago and they've won. ... The inequality gap is the widest
it's been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely
keeping their heads above water.
The
right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National
Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans,
and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't
have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people.
