Quotes About Journalism

It is true that the Internet can be used to disseminate falsehoods quickly, but it just as quickly roots them out and exposes them in a way that the traditional model of journalism and its closed, insular, one-way form of communication could never do.

It irritates me that everybody concentrates on Gawker, because it's just one of 15 sites and it doesn't even get the most traffic. It's a significant site, but it's not what we are.

I don't want to just traffic in sensationalism or in mere blood.

When I was a general assignment reporter early in my career, I was the one knocking on their door after a tragedy.

The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.

In an era of 'fake news' the role of trained and professional journalists has never been more important.

My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.

We are trained to distinguish between journalism that's short and long, that's responsible and irresponsible, that stands for the right values and stands for the wrong.

I don't believe reporters are supposed to be the story. That's how I was trained.

When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me.

I was trained as journalist never to use the word 'I,' never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word 'I,' you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgement.

My training as a journalist was invaluable: when I worked on 'The Daily Express,' the editor would often ask for 1000 words within a couple of hours. I could not say I was not inspired. I had to get on with it.

The journalism, I was a financial journalist - it's very good training as a writer. You have to write for deadlines; you have a certain economy of phrasing. As a training ground as a writer, it's fantastic. I also think it teaches you to be observant, to listen to people, and gives you an ear of dialogue from doing interviews.

I never did any training in journalism or in finance, so I really was in the deep end. I got very good at going to press conferences and nodding. I'd figure it out when I got back to the office. Charts and numbers. I've never been great with facts, ever, my whole life. For a journalist, that's not a very good trait.

I don't think there's any reason in journalism not to approach stories we cover with humility, empathy, compassion, and intellectual openness. I mean, I think those are just important human traits. I don't think that precludes scrutiny, negativity, where it's appropriate.

One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.

There are no journalistic ethics that transcend the value of human life. There are none. In a situation where you can save a human life, you must. There isn't any conflict in my mind.

I am not covering stories as a transgender reporter. I'm a reporter who is transgender. Otherwise, it would be like having a black reporter only cover stories about blacks or a Hispanic reporter covering stories about Hispanics.

My mentor in the transition from the old Gabriel Heatter and John Cameron Swayze way of doing things was David Brinkley. He brought an entirely different style to what we were doing.

When you talk to women who were working as print journalists or in broadcasting in the '50s, and then you talk to women who were working in the late '60s, there's an enormous difference. There had already been a huge transition. Then, of course, you get well into the '70s and there were women with children working.

I started as a journalist for magazines in New York City, so it was always storytelling. And moving into movies was a natural transition.

I still have the 'New York Post' delivered because it's so garrulous and nasty and wonderful when you read it in print. Some things just don't translate online.

I never used a translator, never thought that the journalists might not understand.

I don't claim to be a journalist. I hold myself to higher standards of transparency and disclosure.