Daily Inspiration Quote by Otto Schily

Schily’s line has the polished steel of a statesman trying to draw a border without sounding like a censor. He opens by paying tribute to a civic religion: investigative journalism as democracy’s immune system, exposing rot and forcing accountability. That first clause is a strategic salute to the press, a way of saying, I’m not the enemy. Then comes the pivot: the “but” that turns admiration into containment.

The intent is to reframe press freedom as conditional in practice, even if absolute in principle. He’s not contesting the right to publish wrongdoing; he’s contesting journalists’ access to the raw materials of state power. “Classified” does a lot of work here. It’s a term that sounds technical, apolitical, almost boring, which is precisely why it’s effective: classification is presented as neutral governance rather than a tool that can be abused to hide embarrassment or illegality. The subtext is an anxiety about leakage as a systemic threat - not merely to “security,” but to executive control, diplomatic maneuvering, and the state’s monopoly on timing.

Context matters: Schily, a German interior minister in an era shaped by terrorism fears and the post-9/11 security turn, speaks from inside the machine that must justify secrecy while appearing liberal. The rhetorical move is moderation: he concedes the glamour of exposés while insisting that transparency can’t be indiscriminate. It’s a bid to make limits on access sound like common sense, not repression.

What makes it work is its asymmetry: it praises outcomes (scandals uncovered) while restricting inputs (documents available). That’s how you endorse a free press in public while tightening the faucet in policy.