Quote:
Originally Posted by orlok
"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."
--Mark Twain
|
Given the sentiment of the quotation, I feel justified in posting
a link to the QI website about this quotation.
In brief, it's not Mark Twain, but some random person on Usenet in 2000.
The origin of the phrase in that post is unknown, but Thomas Jefferson actually wrote something along the same lines in an 1807 letter:
"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 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 & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."