John Simkin Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 John Swinton was a journalist who worked for the New York Times. Just before he died in 1901 he said: "There is no such thing, at this stage of the world’s history in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my papers, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Plumlee Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 John Swinton was a journalist who worked for the New York Times. Just before he died in 1901 he said: "There is no such thing, at this stage of the world’s history in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my papers, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." "... There is not one of you who dare write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. ...". John" Would you say the 'gate keepers' of the media, create the history we record and report in our research to the generation of today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 (edited) John, John Swinton, that socialist? Why post about him? He took up the cause of labor, over capitalism. We are conditioned in America to frown upon such ideas. According to his obituary in the NY Times, "...held a position as chief editorial writer.....He remained with this newspaper from 1860 to 1870." Swinton made the speech you've quoted from, in 1883, as he was launching a plan to pubilsh his own newspaper, it lasted four years. http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Labor%2...nG=Search+BooksLabor's untold story - Page 82 Richard Owen Boyer, Herbert Montfort Morais - Business & Economics - 1975 - 402 pages ... Suppose the ideas of these hapless people were the sort which editors and policemen call 'communistic,' does anybody suppose that the thing can be scribbled out of their hearts or clubbed out of their heads ? Shortly after his response to the toast to the Independent Press Swinton resigned his editorship and started his own newspaper, a weekly called John Swinton ... http://books.google.com/books?cd=2&q=%...nG=Search+Books Forerunners of revolution: muckrakers and the American social conscience - Page 24 Walter M. Brasch - Social Science - 1990 - 197 pages ... attended by leaders of New York journalism to honor him, he turned his attack not to the injustices of American society, but to the abuse of authority. ... Limited preview http://books.google.com/books?id=ybszAAAAM...;q=&f=falseA momentous question: the respective attitudes of labor and capital John Swinton - Pullman Strike, 1894 http://books.google.com/books?id=t9gpAAAAY...mon&f=false Career and conversation of John Swinton, journalist, orator, economist - Page 24 Robert Waters - Biography & Autobiography - 1902 - 84 pages This may give the reader some idea of something Swinton was very fond of — winding ... Mammon has more worshippers to-day than all the other gods together. John Swinton's December 16, 1901, NY Times Obituary.: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...9649D946097D6CF Edited February 26, 2010 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 John,John Swinton, that socialist? Why post about him? He took up the cause of labor, over capitalism. We are conditioned in America to frown upon such ideas. According to his obituary in the NY Times, "...held a position as chief editorial writer.....He remained with this newspaper from 1860 to 1870." Swinton made the speech you've quoted from, in 1883, as he was launching a plan to pubilsh his own newspaper, it lasted four years. According to this source the speech took place in 1880: http://www.constitution.org/pub/swinton_press.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 John" Would you say the 'gate keepers' of the media, create the history we record and report in our research to the generation of today? I think the internet has undermined the power of the mass media. Therefore I do not think it has as much power as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries. Despite what he said about the freedom of the press, it was claimed: "It was his boast that he never, no matter what the ideas of his employers were, wrote a line contrary to his honest convictions as uttered on the stump." I have created a web page for John Swinton: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAswintonJ.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. A. Copeland Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 Very interesting. I think today that Psychological Warfare plays a very important and powerful role in controlling and misleading the masses in general. It has also been said that "history is written by the winners". I agree also that the internet has undermined the mass media and/or ruling establishment. Their inability to fully fully maintain and control it will certainly be their undoing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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