Did Mark Twain say, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed"? No, that's not true: There's no reliable evidence that the American author and humorist ever made such a statement. It does not appear in quote compilations searched by Lead Stories.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @KnowledgeArchiv account on X on March 26, 2026. It read:
'If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed.'
--Mark Twain
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @KnowledgeArchiv on X.com.)
The Center for Mark Twain Studies
The Center for Mark Twain Studies features this quote (archived here) in The Apocryphal Twain (archived here), a collection of unverified anecdotes attributed to him. It says:
There is perhaps no greater testament to Twain's lasting reputation than the habitual misattribution of miscellaneous wit and wisdom to his name. The circulation of such apocryphal aphorisms was common enough in the 20th century. It has only increased with the popularization of digital media. The most common question addressed to the Center for Mark Twain Studies is some variety of 'Did he really say that?'
A Google Advanced Search (archived here) for the quote on the Twainquotes.com website (archived here) found no matches for "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed."
