Twitter and Facebook are brilliant- tools, the journalistic uses of which are still being plumbed. They are great for disseminating interesting material. They are useful for gathering information, including from places that are inaccessible.
Bill KellerMaybe we're all a little too desperate these days for a simple formula to explain how our safe world came unhinged. That, as much as anything, may explain one of the more enduring conspiracy theories of the moment, the notion that we are about to send a quarter of a million American soldiers to war for the sake of Israel.
Bill KellerI don't think fairness means that you give equal time to every point of view no matter how marginal. You weigh the sides, you do some truth-testing, you apply judgment to them.
Bill KellerI think there's been a decline in the public's access to what's being done with their tax dollars, what's being done in their name. I hope that that will be repaired.
Bill KellerJulian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has on several occasions talked about transparency as an absolute principle. I don't personally believe that.
Bill KellerMy dad was an engineer, and he became the CEO of Chevron. His was an engineer's mind-set: Everything's kind of a problem how do you approach the problem?
Bill KellerMy feeling about the Internet or anything else is that the more it tends to become a cult, the more I want to call it into question.
Bill KellerOne of the most important disciplines in journalism is to challenge your working premises.
Bill KellerEvery time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from... from... wait, what was I saying?
Bill KellerBuying an aggregator and calling it a content play is a little like a company's announcing plans to improve its cash position by hiring a counterfeiter.
Bill KellerYou don't want to go around willy-nilly suing news organizations. That's probably self-defeating.
Bill KellerThere is something decidedly faux about the camaraderie of Facebook, something illusory about the connectedness of Twitter.
Bill KellerI'm convinced that the most important division in human affairs is probably not the one between left and right, liberal and conservative. It's the one between zealotry and understanding, between absolute conviction and compromise, between preachers and politicians.
Bill KellerCasual reliance on unnamed sources...corrodes our credibility and, in cases that are rare but not rare enough, may abet journalistic malpractice.
Bill KellerChoosing my favorite moment in journalism would be like picking a favorite among my children. I can't pick one favorite.
Bill KellerLiberation movements - prizing ends over means - are not always particular about their friends or scrupulous about their transactions.
Bill KellerWhether or not Twitter makes you stupid, it certainly makes some smart people sound stupid.
Bill KellerEverything is accessible to everyone all the time, and I think there are wondrous things to treasure with what the Internet has made available to journalists. But I think it's also had some effects that are less pleasant. It has chipped away at a sense of privacy and secrecy.
Bill KellerMost recently, the president's reluctance to offend Senator Rick Santorum - a Catholic theocrat who believes that states should have the power to arrest gay lovers in their bedrooms, or even to criminalize couples who use contraceptives - was an occasion to wonder what, exactly, Mr. Bush was born-again into.
Bill KellerThe queen of aggregation is, of course, Arianna Huffington, who has discovered that if you take celebrity gossip, adorable kitten videos, posts from unpaid bloggers and news reports from other publications, array them on your website and add a left-wing soundtrack, millions of people will come.
Bill KellerI don't think anyone at Fox believes they are producing even-handed, impartial coverage.
Bill Keller