It is part of the business of a newspaper to get news and to print it; it is part of the business of a politician to prevent certain news being printed. For this reason the politician often takes a newspaper into his confidence for the mere purpose of preventing the publication of the news he deems objectionable to his interests.

What might be a derivation of this quote appears here | I think that the most accurate definition of news was the one with which the editor of a big-circulation newspaper used to placate the anxious directors when, on the morning after a big “story,” the furious protests, threatening letters and writs for libel were pouring in. “News,” he used to say, trying to get them to look at the thing philosophically, “news is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising.” | LACUNA, a pen name, in the magazine The Motor, the article "You’ll Be Interested To Know", issue from 14 December 1937. | Research about this saying was done by the Quote Investigator.