Quotes About Reporting

The whole point of American journalism has always been detachment from authority so that critical analysis is possible.

On September 12, 2013, the Atlantic, a progressive media outlet, reported that there were at least twenty-four journalists who transitioned from media jobs to working in the Obama administration.

In other words, journalists should not seek and report facts as news, but launder their news gathering priorities and the facts themselves through a progressive ideology to give them meaning and purpose.

In fact, so bad is the federal government's management of its massive resources that the General Accountability Office (GAO) found the accuracy of most of its financial reporting suspect.

Indeed, during the last several decades alone, poll after poll and survey after survey have demonstrated that the media are more liberal than the public at large.

Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please.

Generally it's not a good idea to wear Banana Republic - type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that's supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.

I'm a member of the working press; you'd think I'd know better than to listen to journalists.

A newspaper is lumber made malleable. It is ink made into words and pictures. It is conceived, born, grows up and dies of old age in a day.

In reporting on commencements at Amherst and Mount Holyoke, newspapers listed students who read prizewinning essays as well as the number of seniors who had professed their faith.

There's a bit of Ron Burgundy in every newsroom..

I will stay in the car until the last minute that I'm going to jump out and do a standup or jump out and do some interviews.

I said, "I've reported to my contracted supervisor." (I know, I know, I could have said no, I didn't kill anybody. I could have said that even SecUnits under company protocol use minimum force necessary

Our agents reported that the journos weren't persuading anyone new; they were just keeping the Initiative's supporters from wavering in their calls for our heads.

Accelerated by social media, moral panic has become the last dependably profitable format of modern news reporting.

The public largely misunderstands the "fake news" issue. Newspapers rarely fib outright. Most "lies" are errors of omission or emphasis. There are no Fox stories saying blue states have lower divorce rates, nor are there MSNBC stories exploring the fact that many pro-choice Democrats, particularly religious ones, struggle with a schism between their moral and political beliefs on abortion.

Trump was a demon from hell sent to punish all of these reporting sins.

One additional bizarre Trump-inspired change to reporting that took place in 2016 involved polls: we increasingly ignored data favorable to Trump and pushed surveys suggesting a Clinton landslide. The Times ran a piece in October pronouncing the race essentially over, telling us to expect a "sweeping victory at every level" for Clinton.

In 2016 especially, news reporters began to consciously divide and radicalize audiences. The cover was that we were merely "calling out" our divisive new president, Donald Trump. But from where I sat, the press was now working in collaboration with Trump, acting in his simplistic mirror image, creating a caricatured oppositional demographic and feeding it content. As Trump rode to the White House, we rode to massive profits. The only losers were the American people

Though most of our problems are systemic, most of our public debates are referendums on personality. Not many people can be neutral on the subject of Trump, so we wave him at you all day long. Meanwhile, a vast universe of systemic issues is ignored. We've been steadily narrowing that field of view for decades, particularly in investigative reporting.

informationally

When we deride journalists as stenographers, it's not about them repeating the words of powerful officials. The real crime is absorbing the ideas of powerful people (often crafted by groups of officials in a dreary corporate process) and repeating them as if they're your own personal thoughts.

In reality, there was no truly free press in America anymore,

In that crucible a new kind of newspaper was born, one that was not merely an organ of the commercial elites, but rather a mass-market medium—politically independent, designed to be read by the average person, and featuring exactly the sort of reporting that continues to mark most newspaper journalism today: crime, scandal, sports, entertainment.