Quotes About Journalism

I personally think honestly disclosing rather than hiding one's subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism. But no journalism - from the most stylistically 'objective' to the most brazenly opinionated - has any real value unless it is grounded in facts, evidence, and verifiable data.

I think some of the best reporters are the ones who can really illustrate the differences between societies, at the same time trying to connect the fact that there are a lot of shared values in addition to those differences.

TV has made everyone so vanilla it's nearly impossible to tell one anchor apart from another.

The truth is that every news channel is a variant of the other and the difference is one of degree.

Newspapers and magazines are vanishing. But science writers are not. In fact, they are becoming so adept and varied that I hardly have time to read 'Gawker' anymore.

I spent 19 years as a Washington reporter covering a variety of beats.

I think it's one of the Times' problems that they haven't made it clear to readers what various formats mean.

I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.

We've seen how grassroots journalism by blogs has had an impact at various points politically, as ordinary people have amplified stories that were being ignored by the traditional press.

I think the idea of fact-checking, I think the idea that you come up through a system where you know how to cover night cops, and then you go on, and you go on to various beats, including writing obituaries, and you get names right, you know how to spell them, really has some advantages to it.

I'm always aware of various audiences, as a part of my training as a journalist and as part of my training as a citizen of Negroland.

The vast bulk of Murdoch's news output, including the huge majority of any falsehood and distortion, is simply the spontaneous product of his highly commercialised newsrooms. It sells.

Five to 10 years from now, if not sooner, the vast majority of 'The New Republic' readers are likely to be reading it on a tablet.

I would like to know that when I read the paper in the morning, it's telling me something that actually happened, and I think the vast majority of journalists want the same thing.

Some journalists are schmucks, in it for themselves, willing to cut corners. But in my experience the vast majority of journalists are trying to contribute to their communities, honestly and reliably.

'The Post' is a fairly fusty place when it comes to profanity. If a reporter tries to get a bad word into a story, the word is usually forwarded to top editors, who consider it with the gravity and speed that the Vatican applies to candidates for sainthood.

We began our 'Luxe Life' and 'Vegas DeLuxe daily columns' not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and we've spent a decade bringing you showbiz stories and star scoops. I hope it continues for a long time to come because I honestly feel that all the late nights and around-the-clock hours to be first and fast keep me young.

In Sierra Leone last year there was just the two of us hanging out of a helicopter and, when we were in Bosnia, I drove an armoured vehicle, thousands of miles.

I don't think I win most interviews. For instance, with Fidel Castro, I only spoke with him one minute and three seconds. But I think he won because I couldn't get anything from him. With the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, it happened exactly the same thing.

I learned how to cover race riots by telephone. They didn't pay me enough at my first newspaper job to venture onto the grounds of South Boston High School when bricks were being thrown. Instead, I would telephone the headmaster and ask him to relay to me the number of broken chairs in the cafeteria each day.

As a journalist, I've been a professional watcher, picking up the body language and verbal tics that make us individuals and interesting to others.

The liberal-run institution of journalism does not allow probing of real problems facing black people. That is prohibited. It might lead to actual solutions. It might provoke black people to wake up every day looking for solutions rather than excuses and meaningless verbal offenses.

When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.

Many a good newspaper story has been ruined by over verification.