A Quote by Amy Goodman

The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government.

Amy Goodman

Quote Topics

Government Absolutely Balance Check Cozy Democracy Essential Job Media Our Power Supposed Supposed To Be Up

Quote Author

Amy Goodman
American - Journalist
Born: April 13, 1957

Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become.

Amy Goodman

The country is in some trouble, because the media, which is supposed to provide a check and balance on government, has decided to stop doing that as a collective entity.

Craig Newmark

A flourishing, diverse media is essential to a functioning democracy.

Owen Jones

Democracy depends on citizens being informed, and since our media, especially television (which is the most important source of news for most Americans) reports mostly what the people in power do, and repeats what the people in power say, the public is badly informed, and it means we cannot really say we have a functioning democracy.

Howard Zinn

Now that our media companies and it appears are policies are traded for cash, what is there to check the continuing consolidation of power and diminishing of democracy?

Joichi Ito

An informed public democracy means rule of the people. A media system is absolutely essential to that process, if people are going to be political equals, they to have to have the information and tools so they can actually be participants. That's liberal democracy 101.

Robert Waterman McChesney

How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?

Edward Snowden

In a democracy, the citizens are supposed to have all the power, and the government is supposed to be the means by which the citizens exercise that power. But when you have a surveillance state, the state has all the power, and citizens have very little.

Trevor Paglen

When we work on carving out balance in our lives, we are then shuttled to the superhighway of our best life fueled by our intention. The power and confidence comes from the knowledge that we can absolutely do something to achieve balance.

Tara Stiles

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that. But there is a competing interest, and that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that may be absolutely essential to assist them in the investigation of illegal wrongdoing. And so you've got these two competing interests. I believe that the current policy at the Department of Justice reflects a careful balancing of those interests.

Alberto Gonzales

I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.

Walter Cronkite

Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However, where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny.

Patrick Henry

To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government. . . The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The media plays an essential role in our culture. It is the Fourth Estate; it's an undeniably essential instrument in the great American experiment - in keeping our democracy functional. People have very strong opinions about what that means and how information should be disseminated to a population that requires information.

Thomas Sadoski

We should - we will - welcome people of faith into the political process... It is essential that believers enter the arena. Your involvement in politics helps determine how well our democracy works. We have finally learned that government programs cannot solve our problems. Government can hand out money, but government cannot put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives.