Simon Singh Quotes

Some of the press who speak loudly about the freedom of the press are themselves the enemies of freedom. Countless people dare not say a thing because they know it will be picked up and made a song of by the press. That limits freedom.

All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up.

Fear rules almost every newsroom in the country.

The thing that's been inhibiting long-form investigative reporting is fear - fear of being sued, of being unpopular, of being criticized by very powerful groups.

We journalists in America take it for granted that we are not going to be killed for our work. Unfortunately, this is not true elsewhere in the world.

Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins

We need a free media, not just freedom of speech.

I don't think any media has to feel obliged to show the cover of 'Charlie Hebdo.'

Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution.

I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

It is the responsibility of journalists to be ethical. Religion is a very sensitive issue, and I think no truly professional cartoonist in the world would ever try to pick on a religion like this. There’s an informal code of ethics among cartoonists in the media, and it includes two kinds of censorship: one is self-censorship; the other is professional censorship. Religion is one of the very important things that we should respect and not criticize …. We cannot tolerate any disparagement of the Prophet.

We believe that the remedy to any harm resulting from press freedom lies in press freedom itself.

To arrest a journalist for performing his duty is a confiscation of the freedom of expression guaranteed by all international pacts

A free press can of course be good or bad, but most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad.

Freedom of the press and a free society either prosper together or perish together.

No greater or more unwarrantable restriction on freedom of speech or writing is, to our thinking, conceivable than this law of libel and slander.

There is no functional difference between censorship and the threat of censorship.

When people fear surveillance, whether it exists or not, they grow afraid to speak their minds and hearts freely to their government or to anyone else.

Once you “volunteer” and engage in self-censorship something happens to your conscience.

I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, there are certain limitations placed upon the right of free speech. I must be exceedingly careful, prudent, as to what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think.

… most censorship took place in the heads of writers, and what the writers failed to cut usually got filtered out by editors in publishing houses.

Turkey still has one of the highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world.

We must have a free press. If we are to maintain democracxy as we know it, we must have a free and adversarial press.... That's how dictoators get power [by intimidating, restriciting and censoring the press.]

The government that has imprisoned more journalists than any other in the world was democratically elected.

Certain governments are suggesting that bloggers and tweeters aren't 'real' writers and, so, don't merit protection. A writer is anyone from a Nobel laureate to a debut blogger. They all get PEN's attention.