Portal:Journalism/Selected quote/17

Experience has shown that newspapers are one of the best means of directing opinion - of quieting feverish movements - of causing the lies and artificial rumours by which the enemies of the State may attempt to carry on their evil designs to vanish. In these public papers, instruction may descend from the Government to the people, or ascend from the people to the Government; the greater the freedom allowed, the more correctly may a judgment be formed upon the course of opinion - with so much the greater certainty will it act. — Jeremy Bentham

Source

• Andrews, Alexander (1859). The History of British Journalism: From the Foundation of the Newspaper Press in England to the Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1855, with Sketches of Press Celebrities. R. Bentley. pp. Volume II, Page 179.