Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra
This was sent to me. I don’t know how authentic it is but the content is rivetting. Nothing has changed, not really, in fact, it has become worse and more is the pity…so many of my tribe can see themselves reflected, those who fought and went out, those who buckled under and survived on freebies and a total lack of conscience. i see so many of us here it isheartbreaking.
John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the NEW YORK TIMES was asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1953. Below is his candid confession.
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to 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 so 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 paper, 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 the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. 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.”