Do you really believe the corporate media tell you all of the truth all of the time? Or do you suspect that some stories are just not dealt with, while others are subtly slanted and edited so as to tell you what to believe concerning an issue, person or movement?

Fortunately, at least one highly-respected journalist has publicly confessed that this is indeed the case. Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1953, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the NEW YORK TIMES, made this candid confession (it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newspeople, who admired him greatly):

There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty four hours my occupation would be gone.'

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

--John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff for the New York Times.