You can't serve the public good without the truth as a bottom line.

The reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today and they, or rather we [journalists], too often are squandering our power and ignoring our obligations. The consequence of our abdication of responsibility is the ugly spectacle of idiot culture!

June 17, 1972. Nine o'clock Saturday morning. Early for the telephone. Woodward fumbled for the receiver and snapped awake. The city editor of the Washington Post was on the line. Five men had been arrested earlier that morning in a burglary attempt at Democratic headquarters, carrying photographic equipment and electronic gear. Could he come in?

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

Donald Trump is american neo-fascist. The word "neo" meaning "new", has a lot to do with it, a new kind of fascist in our culture, dealing with an authoritarian demagogic point of view, nativist, anti-immigrant, racism, bigotry that he appeals to.