Information Control Quotes

The job of the reporters in Vietnam was to report the news, whether or not the news was good for America. To the ambassadors and generals, on the other hand, it was crucial that the news be good, and they regarded any other interpretation as defeatist and irresponsible.

The organization of our press has truly been a success. Our law concerning the press is such that divergences of opinion between members of the government are no longer an occasion for public exhibitions, which are not the newspapers' business.

All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.

Whoever controls the media—the images—controls the culture.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.

Whatever may be said about the power of the press, it is undeniable that it can set the entire public thinking and talking about any topic ...

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.

The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen, and the far spread magazine, rules the country.

For years, right wing outlets like outlets like Fox News and talk radio have been telling their audience day after day that any information coming from outside of conservative media is not to be trusted.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

The state must not ... let itself be confused by the drivel about so-called "freedom of the press," ... it must make sure of this instrument of popular education, and place it in the service of the state.

Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups...So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.

The Freedom of Information Act isn’t used, for the most part, by the people. It’s used by Journalists … The information is not sought to bestow knowledge upon the people. It is used as a weapon.

The primary purpose of the media is to mobilize support for the controlling interests.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

Soviet propaganda is remarkably effective and the Americans are even more remarkably stupid.

History shows a typical progression of information technologies: from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel-from open to closed system.

One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.

The administration shaded the truth … I was part of the propaganda campaign.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

People are just beginning to learn how much their own personal privacy is being invaded and that they’re losing control over their own information.

Our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.

It’s like a presidential press conference. Information goes in and information goes out, but there is not necessarily a connection between the two.

To keep a person ignorant is to place them in a cage.