The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
A. J. LieblingRead
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
Interpretation
True freedom of the press requires ownership and control of the media.
A. J. Liebling's quote highlights a critical perspective on the concept of press freedom. It suggests that the ideals of freedom of the press can be compromised when only those with financial resources have the ability to express themselves through media ownership, thereby questioning the accessibility and equality of voice in public discourse.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about media ownership and its implications for democracy.
The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.
No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures. No ascetic can be considered reliably sane.
A city with one newspaper... is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy
A city with one newspaper, or with a morning and an evening paper under one ownership, is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms?
And yet we knew, for a certainty, that when first emissaries of Earth went walking among the planets, Earth's other sons would be dreaming not about such expeditions but about a piece of bread.
We eat every day, and if we do it in a way that doesn't recognize value, it's contributing to the destruction of our culture and of agriculture. But if it's done with a focus and care, it can be a wonderful thing. It changes the quality of your life.
In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace.
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.
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