Politics & Power Quote by Arthur Miller

A good newspaper, in Miller's formulation, isn't a bulletin board or a priestly pulpit; it's the sound of civic self-interrogation. The sly brilliance is in "I suppose" - a shrug that doubles as a challenge. He refuses to sanctify journalism while still insisting on its highest purpose: not telling a nation what to think, but giving it the space (and the friction) to hear its own contradictions out loud.

Miller knew something about public speech and private guilt. As the playwright of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, he anatomized what societies choose to believe about themselves, and what they punish when those stories crack. In that light, "talking to itself" carries a warning: conversation can be honest, or it can be self-soothing theater. A newspaper can let a country confront facts it would rather repress, or it can become a rehearsal space for comforting myths.

The line also smuggles in a democratic ideal of journalism as a shared, messy commons. "Nation" implies plural voices, not a single authoritative "we". A good paper has to stage disagreement, elevate the unheard, test the powerful, and keep memory from being rewritten overnight. The subtext is that when newspapers fail, it's not just an industry problem; it's a civic one. A nation that stops talking to itself doesn't become quiet. It becomes easily spoken for.