Thomas Jefferson (1787)

From a letter sent from Paris to Edward Carrington, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

"If there is one thing we ought to be careful about, it is in regard to interfering with the liberty of the press ... I think it is a great deal better to err a little bit on the side of having too much discussion and having too virulent language used by the press, rather than to err on the side of having them not say what they ought to say, especially with reference to public men and public measures."

Theodore Roosevelt (1883)

From remarks to the New York State Assembly

The Supreme Court (1964)

From the unanimous ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which established that publications cannot be found guilty of libel against public officials unless found to have known the information was false and been reckless with the truth

“We consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

Hannah Arendt (1974)

From an interview for a story in The New York Review of Books. Arendt was a writer and political theorist who escaped Europe during the Holocaust and became famous and widely respected for her views on power and totalitarianism.

Nelson Mandela (1994)

From a speech to the International Press Institute Congress

“A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favour. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.”

“There is no more important pillar of democracy than a free and active press. In fact, our Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, called it the "fourth estate," and by that he meant that without a free and active press the people could not be certain that their views would be known to their leaders and that their leaders' views would be known to them. It is a great tradition that the press is a place for active debate, for active reporting, for investigative reporting, for in-depth reporting and for daily reporting.”

Condoleezza Rice (2007)

From remarks at the Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program