Quotes About Journalism

If you're a good journalist, what you do is live a lot of things vicariously, and report them for other people who want to live vicariously.

People think because 'Vice' is irreverent and because we're crazy, we're stunt journalists. You know what? I don't actually care.

I always knew I wanted to be on air and travel the world and tell people's stories. I wanted to convey something from other cultures to the U.S. - and vice versa.

Reporting makes you a better anchor and vice versa.

As a parent who is also a journalist, when I talk to the brother and the sister of a victim or the parent of a victim, I put myself in their position and imagine what would it be like if that happened to me.

Clearly, 9/11 would have to be some of the best work that I've done because I was working without a template, and that was very difficult. Having nearly been victimized by the north tower, it was difficult to remain composed and be informative.

Now if you look at the London 'Times,' you'll find that with quite a number of the photographs, you touch them, and they turn into videos. I think newspapers come alive that way. We talk about 'papers.' We should cut out the word 'paper,' you know? It's 'news organizations.'

I went to Vietnam; it was my first assignment as a reporter for the UPI, and I never could get away from the war.

Had there been a reporter along with Lieutenant Calley when he massacred those people in Vietnam, I think that probably wouldn't have happened.

Being in Vietnam and being around a major story of the time was always a great shot of adrenaline.

My journalistic heroes are all the guys like Peter Arnett of Vietnam, and my style in journalism is you got to stand there, and you got to see it with your own eyes.

I want to stress the importance of being fair to our readers. You should not impose your own view and prejudice on the readers and try to lead them to a conclusion. As a reader, I understand what a fair report is.

A journalist is supposed to present an unbiased portrait of an event, a view devoid of intimate emotions. This is impossible, of course. The framing of an image, by its very composition, represents a choice. The photographer chooses what to show and what to exclude.

You can't expect to work for the Daily Mail group and have the rest of society treat with you respect as a useful member of society, because you are not.

To spend and lose a majority in some great cause, to be abused and ridiculed and calumniated, seems to the writer a misfortune so great that it is worth while to haul down one's flag rather than incur the risk of it. This is the power of journalism, of salons and club life, which teaches people to depend on popularity and success and not on the guide within, to act not from knowledge, but from opinion, and to be led by opinion of others rather than by knowledge which is their own.

Journalism — a profession whose business it is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

Much earlier in this century an Austrian journalist, Karl Kraus, pointed out that if you actually perceived the true reality behind the news you would run, screaming, into the streets. I have run screaming into the streets dozens of times but have always managed to return home in time for dinner-and usually an hour early so that I can help in the preparation.

Reporting is all about legwork, getting out and finding the story. But all the stories are on the top floors, so you have to learn to climb stairs. That's what reporting is all about, climbing tenement stairs.

I left journalism because I met too many interesting people at an uninteresting salary.

I trained as a journalist in America where paying sources is frowned upon. Now I work in the U.K. where there is a more flexible attitude.

I'm relieved that after all these years of doing atrocity work, I still cry my eyes out every time I read the paper in the morning. It's surprising, actually.

Before journalism, I had worked doing medical aid work in conflict zones. Then, as a journalist, I had written about hospitals in war zones.

It wasn't glamorous in my day. In the regions, reporters were seen as such low life that they didn't merit their name in the Radio Times. Now people are interested in being famous. I never gave it a thought.

The Times Group had already sued to prevent Arnab from using his catchphrase, 'The nation wants to know'.