JFK addresses the media about the Cold War

On many earlier occasions, I have said—and your newspapers have constantly said— that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline.  They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good.  I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. 

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news.  I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications.  I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.  But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities—to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger—and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

~ President John F. Kennedy, “ADDRESS: THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS,” April 27, 1961