We journalists are intellectual prostitutes
John Swainton
Honest Journalist – A Posthumous Honoree
“There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinion.” John Swainton of the New York Times told colleagues at his retirement party in 1870. “The business of a journalist now is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” So saying, he sailed away into an honest retirement.
— quoted in the INDEX on Censorship , Vol. 30, No. 1, January 2001, p. 10.