Noah Webster
“The freedom of the press is a valuable privilege; but the abuse of it, in this country, … is a frightful evil. The licentiousness of the press is a deep stain upon the character of the country; & in addition to the evil of calumniating good men, & giving a wrong direction to public measures, it corrupts the people by rendering them insensible to the value of truth & of reputation.
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.”
General William Tecumseh Sherman
“If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.”
General William Tecumseh Sherman
My favorites:
—Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Nathaniel Macon, January 12, 1819—
Speaking particularly about the “press” and their “license”, Mark Twain said:
That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house.”
— Mark Twain
Those are some great quotes.