Quotes About Journalism

In the best of all possible worlds, everybody would be honorable, but that's not the way the world works. Reputations for reporters are made by discovering things underneath that rock.

It is an odd thing about newspapers that they live by exposure, yet they keep their own worlds concealed.

'The New York Times' is inherent in what we are, but not worn as 'what we are'; it's important and crucial to all of us, but not something that was drilled in, in any specific ways.

People are worried about what's going to happen to journalism - and they should be. Every day, the blogosphere is getting better and print media is getting worse; you have to be an idiot not to see that.

I have never worried about 'Frontline' becoming an old-fashioned news brand, because we never were.

As a journalist, you're always worried, 'Did I get the full story?'

It worries me that western journalists, especially British ones, call everyone they don't like 'marginal.'

'The Guardian,' with its deep journalistic traditions, is careful about context and explanation. It sees itself as a gatekeeper, and it worries about consequences.

It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

Journalists ask me all the time, 'Akshay, do you believe in the numbers game?' My standard response: 'I can't count, that's why I have producers and accountants who calculate for me. As long as I have them in my life, I don't need to worry about numbers!'

I have never quite grasped the worry about the power of the press. After all, it speaks with a thousand voices, in constant dissonance.

Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.

It's totally mistaken to suppose that an armed escort is going to give a journalist any protection - on the contrary, journalists who turn up surrounded by armed personnel are just turning themselves into targets and in even worse danger.

There's no worse crime in journalism these days than simply deciding something's a story because Drudge links to it.

The worst thing about being in the public eye is that journalists write things that you can't control.

I think the worst thing that's happened to sports is 'sources say.'

I don't think there's any story worth dying for, but I do think there are stories worth taking risks for.

A duped newspaper or magazine could contend that a fiction-spouting journalist obtained part of his salary via fraud, and use a criminal proceeding to try and recoup that money. Given the profession's notoriously low wages, however, it's probably not worth the publicity headache and legal fees. No news organization has ever pursued such a case.

And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story.

In the '70s, the newspaper guild managed to get people paid what they were worth, but the reporters suddenly became middle class. It's much more respectable, more uptight, and everyone speaks in guarded tones. And the writing isn't as good. We always had guys who were failed poets and failed novelists who did it to eat.

Journalism, for me, has always been a calling. There are things that must be exposed to the light, truths that must be uncovered, stories worth risking your life for.

It is not astonishing that there are many journalists who have become human failures and worthless men. Rather, it is astonishing that, despite all this, this very stratum includes such a great number of valuable and quite genuine men, a fact that outsiders would not so easily guess.

Tom Brokaw was never young.

One of the nicest things about NBC is that Tom Brokaw is not Dan Rather.