Give people control of the media and they will use it. Don’t give them control and you will lose it.
The increasing diversification of media ecosystems after decades of state control, along with new digital tools that allow for greater citizen engagement, have led to a dramatic reshaping of the dynamics between citizens, media, and government.
Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters and somehow we must find some new way of using radio and television to allow us to talk to each other.
formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate
The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?
I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.
The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, exceeding that of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Yet one would like to ask: According to what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has voted Western journalists into their positions of power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?
Commencement Address, Harvard University, June 8, 1978
With the invention of the blog and all this Internet stuff, everybody has an opinion; everybody has a voice. In fact, there was a time when the average person didn't have a voice so you had to pick an artist to speak for you.
We think we have got freedom of the press. When one millionaire has ten newspapers and ten million people have no newspapers - that is not freedom of the press.
Because storytelling, and visual storytelling, was put in the hands of everybody, and we have all now become storytellers.
I would like all newspapers to become workers' co-operatives.
We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be.
So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent.