Did Mark Twain Say This About Reading the Newspaper and Being Misinformed?

A quote has been floating around in print and online publications for years that, in many instances, has been attributed to writer Mark Twain. The quote is this, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."

We found no evidence Mark Twain was the originator of this statement. Quote Investigator Garson O'Toole also found no instances in which this quote or any like it came from Twain.

According to the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, a private institution in Elmira, New York, "lazy newspaper columnists" began slinging the saying around and attributing it to Mark Twain in 2007, "for reasons that remain unclear."