Some people need everything spelled out.

There are those who blame the Press, but in this I think they are mistaken. The Press is such as the public demands, and the public demands bad newspapers because it has been badly educated.

You're forced to tell the media a lot of crap; provided, of course, that they manage to ask you the right question...You read a dull, lifeless script written by press officers with no talent or creative spark.

There’s a lot of things those journalists know, that I don’t know, but a lot of it is wrong.

The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.

You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know.

The thing about denying the press is there is, the press tends to catch you doing that, because the press is fucking there!

The press is always looking for a little twist to a story and what I've learned is that it all turns out very superficial. So you need to become what they want, you need to give what they put out.

Don't get it right, get it written.

The assertion has been substantiated throughout these pages that the press contains unreliable and doctored reports of lynchings, and one of the most necessary things for the race to do is to get these facts before the public. The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press. The Afro-American papers are the only ones which will print the truth, and they lack means to employ agents and detectives to get at the facts. The race must rally a mighty host to the support of their journals, and thus enable them to do much in the way of investigation.

They cannot tell me how to run my newspapers any more than I can tell them how to run their tanks.

And sometimes, if you want the truth, you have to demand it.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. — May 24, 2005

Haven’t you ever wished it were somehow possible to cross-examine an absolute stranger about something none of your business but damned interesting all the same? Well, think it over—if you’re a reporter, you can. There’s no law says it has to be printed.