The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS / IDEALS OF
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper
should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by
restraining it to true facts and sound principles only." Yet I
fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy
truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely
deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned
prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen
in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that
polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is
known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within
their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with
commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading
newspapers, live and die in the belief, that they have known something
of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the
accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of
any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real
names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed
be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that
Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great
portion of Europe to his will, etc., etc.; but no details can be
relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper
is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows
nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with
falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great
facts, and the details are all false.
to John Norvell, 11 June 1807
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