Fred W. Friendly Quotes

• Television makes so much at its worst that it can't afford to do its best.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Television, Worst

  U.S. News & World Report, June 12, 1967.

  47 Copy quote

• I have a motto: My job is not to make up anybody's mind but to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Jobs, Thinking, Agony

  "The Power of the Media, Part I". "The Open Mind", archive.org. 1990.

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• What we don't know as a nation and as a citizen can kill us.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Citizens, Knows, Nations

  "The Power of the Media, Part II". "The Open Mind", archive.org. 1990.

  4 Copy quote

• Television was supposed to be a national park. (Instead) it has become a money machine... It's a commodity now, just like pork bellies.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Pork, National Parks, Machines

  "Videoculture". Rushworth M. Kidder, Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 1985.

  10 Copy quote

• The news is the one thing the networks can point to with pride. Everything else they do is crap, and they know it.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Pride, News, Crap

  7 Copy quote

• A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Lying, Journalism, Euphemism

  "The Interplay of Influence: Mass Media and Their Publics in News, Advertising, Politics (Wadsworth series in mass communication)". Book by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and‎ Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, 1982.

  10 Copy quote

• TV is bigger than any story it reports. It's the greatest teaching tool since the printing press.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Teacher, Teaching, Tools

  "Fred Friendly's Faith In The Constitution" by Nat Hentoff, www.washingtonpost.com. March 14, 1998.

  8 Copy quote

• Today's reporter is forced to become an educator more concerned with explaining the news than with being first on the scene.

  Fred W. Friendly

  News, Today, Firsts

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• No mighty king, no ambitious emperor, no pope, or prophet ever dreamt of such an awesome pulpit, so potent a magic wand.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Kings, Power, Media

  "Presidential Television: A Twentieth Century Fund report". Book by Newton N. Minow, John Bartlow Martin and Lee M. Mitchell, 1973.

  6 Copy quote

• While the Constitution is what the judges say it is, a public issue is something that Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor recognizes as such. The media by themselves do not make the decisions, but on behalf of themselves and larger interests they certify what is or is not on the nation's agenda.

  Fred W. Friendly

  Issues, Media, Judging

  5 Copy quote

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