Quotes About Journalism

I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s - a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps - was all baloney. I used to say, 'I know reporters. We're not like that.' But we are.

Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

The press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint.

In this hypercompetitive media environment, editors and producers no longer have the patience—or the financial luxury—to allow journalists to develop their own expertise or deep knowledge of a subject. Nor is there any evidence that most news consumers want such detail. Experts are often reduced to sound bites or "pull quotes," if they are consulted at all.

Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession.

Journalism was looked upon as a more noble thing than it is now. I don't know if it carries the same cachet that it did then.

The problem today isn't low-quality journalism, it's too much noise. If one out of five 'Business Insider' stories is original, the other four would be culled.

Nonfiction is never going to die.

In 1982, when I was almost 26 years old, I decided I wanted to write fiction. I'd majored in journalism in college, and I'd always assumed I would write nonfiction.

A lot of things the press say are nonsense.

I think there were times when I first started out, when I was covering Iraq - I was basically living there in 2003 and 2004 - that car bombs and attacks became so the norm that it was weird for me to leave and realize that no one else actually cared about what was going on there.

You do nonfiction, you get to meet people you would not normally meet.

When the world normalizes, everything is going to be fine with RT. When the U.S. and Russia get along again - and I don't see any deep reasons why we shouldn't get along... we are going to work normally like a normal news organization.

I actually went to study journalism at Northwestern, thinking that would be my Plan B for a career. But then I realized, if I'm going to struggle and make no money, I might as well do what I really want to do.

I never take ideas from the headlines. I feel that if a story is good enough, a real story that is, then it's already been covered by the media, and if it's not good enough, why would I want to bother with it?

Sometimes I felt like my columns were like little novels in themselves. But I wasn't writing what I believed. I'm not interested in what I believe.

People say, 'Oh, you're doing the job of journalists.' I think it's very important to note that we can't do our job without journalists. Journalists can do their job without late-night comedians. They'd be just fine without us. But we, of course, use their work every day to build our pieces.

One of the great cliches of campaign journalism is the notion that American elections have long since ceased to be about issues and ideas.

In journalism, as in politics, other people's lives are a currency to be bartered on behalf of notoriety and influence.

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.

I always wanted to use my newspaper background in a novel.

Journalism can go right up to the door of the room in which the decisions are made. A novel can go inside the room - and inside the character's heads.

He was interviewed in the early '60s by a young novelist, Pati Hill.