Quotes About Journalism

Richard Reeves

For the next two years, journalists would dishonestly report that the U.S. president had called neo-Nazis 'fine people'.

But I don't know anything about investigative reporting." Alan looked at me for what I remember as a very long time. "Just remember," he said. "Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page.

Until the end of their lives, these men and women would tell stories about the summer they followed Lyndon Johnson and his Flying Windmill around Texas; as Oliver Knight of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would write about one trip, "That mad dash from Navasota to Conroe in which I dodged stumps at 70 MPH just to keep up with that contraption will ever be green in my memory.") At the landing site, there would be the brief respite

Ben m'boy," Jubal said gently, "as a reporter you are hard-working and sometimes readable.

In almost all other professions a man must be able to observe carefully and report accurately what he has seen. Those qualifications are unnecessary for journalists, however, since their job is to write sensational stories that sell newspapers.

Freedom of the press is a flaming sword," I said. "Use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.

Freedom of the press is a flaming sword. Use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.

I put everything back into the envelope, then called my friend Eddie Ditko at the Examiner. Eddie has been a reporter for about ten million years, and he answered with a voice that was maybe three weeks away from throat cancer. "Ditko.

And my job needs a fair bit of lying, to tell the truth. - What are you, a reporter?

Pro Publica distorts the relationship between organizations and their consultants.

I've always believed that who a reporter votes for, what religion they are, who they love, should not be something they have to discuss publicly.

Religion has become the blind spot of American journalism.

I appreciate that the New York Daily News will show dead bodies but blur the cover of a French parody magazine. Just out of respect, right guys?

To win respect, the networks seem to feel they have to keep absurdly overstating their anchors' reporting cred

have a lot of respect for the responsibility that journalists have to ask tough questions, to hold the administration accountable and to be advocates for the citizens of the United States.

First, if you want reliable information, pay good money for it. If you get your news for free, you might well be the product.

the media should keep things in perspective and avoid hysteria.

journalists who inform society about and thus protect it from cheats and freeloaders. Most

Booker T. also made a point of giving lengthy interviews to journalists because newspaper articles were solid forums for his ideas. "Do you think the time might ever come, that any circumstance might ever arise, by which a black man might become president of the United States?" the Memphis Commercial Appeal asked him point-blank in a conversation about the future of the black man in America. "I should hope so," was Booker T.'s reply.

for journalists words are simply tokens to be arranged and rearranged indifferently. But for an artist there can be only one ideal order.

Do the right thing. Do your job and forget about everything else—and that means the press. Today's headline wraps tomorrow's garbage.

TMZ' and 'People' magazine are expected to be fluff, 'Time' is expected to be news. You'd be hard pressed to spot the difference between them now.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse