Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand however is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands it also seldom works properly.

In my view far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting the New York Times the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.

In the Pentagon Papers case the government asserted in the Supreme Court that the publication of the material was a threat to national security. It turned out it was not a threat to U.S. security. But even if it had been that doesn't mean that it couldn't be published.

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory you don't have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

We believe that peace is not just signed papers but rather a contract between generations for the building of a more promising and less threatening future.

I've thought for the last decade or so the only actual place raw truth was seeping through in newspapers was on the Comics Pages. They were able to pull off intelligent social comment pure truths not found elsewhere in the news pages and had the ability to make it all funny entertaining and pertinent.

If newspapers were a baseball team they would be the Mets - without the hope for those folks at the very pinnacle of the financial food chain - who average nearly $24 million a year in income - 'next year.'

Chronic malnutrition or the lack of proper nutrition over time directly contributes to three times as many child deaths as food scarcity. Yet surprisingly you don't really hear about this hidden crisis through the morning news Twitter or headlines of major newspapers.

The press attack people to sell more papers without thinking but when you get famous you have to put up with this kind of stuff.

But I know newspapers. They have the first amendment and they can tell any lie knowing it's a lie and they're protected if the person's famous or it's a company.

I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web and should do what they can do better which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper.

If the education of our kids comes from radio television newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from and not from the schools then the powers that be are definitely in charge because they own all those outlets.

The Washington black community was able to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. I mean we had our own newspapers our own restaurants our own theaters our own small shops our own clubs our own Masonic lodges.

I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television yob newspapers and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad school police church who used to set the standards now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.

We had incense and rock'n'roll posters and we sold records and rolling papers. People could just like hang out. We had a cool vibe going.