“…I have given my whole life to newspapers. I am convinced that they have abandoned their functions, and in an abject and ignominious manner, in the present war. Nine-tenths of them, and even more than nine-tenths, print the official blather without any attempt to scrutinize it… It is a disgraceful spectacle, but I do not believe that anything can be done about it. Roosevelt has taken the press into camp as certainly has he has taken the Supreme Court. It has ceased altogether to be independent and has become docilely official.”

June 10, 1944
1940s–present, The Diary of H.L. Mencken (1989)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "…I have given my whole life to newspapers. I am convinced that they have abandoned their functions, and in an abject an…" by H.L. Mencken?

H.L. Mencken281

American journalist and writer 1880–1956

Related quotes

“An immense amount, enough to fill many books, has already been written on the subject [of the Barcelona fighting], and I do not suppose I should exaggerate if I said that nine-tenths of it is untruthful.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

“The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

“I, for one, bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it fundamentally endangers us, even with the H-bomb lurking about. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"Self Portrait" (1968), reprinted in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

“Nine tenths of education is encouragement.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Section 2, paragraph 25.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“In the last analysis, Russia will do nine-tenths of the job of defeating Germany.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Prediction made by King when speaking to reporters in Alexandria, Virginia on 30 November 1942. As quoted by Thomas B. Buell in his book Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (1980), p. 265
1940s