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“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 really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time.…General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war…but no details can be relied on.”
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, pp. 224-225. June 11, 1807.)
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