Quotes About Journalism

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

I feel like a lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible.

I think if there's some kind of crisis in news journalism... a crisis of credibility, then it's been created by journalists. I'm empathetic, I understand it and I see it, but I'm not sympathetic about it. If you want people to think of journalism with higher regard then do better work.

The only school that let me in was U.C. Santa Cruz, which is where I went. They didn't have a journalism program, so I took sociology, which is the closest thing to journalism.

The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26.911 words. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

... Don [Hewitt, 60 Minutes exec producer] told me, "You have set broadcast journalism back 20 years." Naturally, I was both proud and elated although too modest to say so, but broadcast journalism recovered with alacrity, my contract wasn't renewed, and the incident was forgotten.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

I certainly don't mean to suggest that all investigative journalism prior to 9/11 in the US was praiseworthy. But there were more examples to which one could point, and there were at last some activist photographers who understood that getting information into the public sphere in spite of military censorship was a right and obligation within democracy. That strain in war journalism did nearly vanish during that time.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.

Journalism is not a profession, but a mission.

Journalism is a kind of profession, or craft, or racket, for people who never wanted to grow up and go out into the real world.

Rachel Maddow is a national treasure. I think that we need honest voices like that and we need journalism like that.

And journalism itself has changed. News organizations and some journalists have transformed from their traditional role as watchdogs of power into institutions of power themselves with an ability, indeed, a susceptibility, to abuse that power.

There is a very big difference between American and British travel journalism, and that's this whole business of the assisted or freebie trip. In Britain we are unashamed about any travel company paying for you to go and then writing about it. That's the only way we can do it. But I have tried the same in the States, and I can't write for any sizeable American newspaper because they tell you to do it on this basis.

I started as a print reporter. I’m a journalist and that’s what I do. My function is an anchorperson, but it’s in a journalism context, and gravitas and coats and ties and haircuts and all that sort of stuff, I’ll leave to others. My thing is just to do my job the best way I know how and as I say I’m very fortunate to be able to do it the way I want to do it.

I think that more diversity is a good thing, and fresh points of view articulated by people who are committed to excellence in journalism is a beneficial change in the American media landscape.

When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say 'all kinds,' but really I mean I don’t write any kind at all: I’m trying to dissolve the borders between memoir and journalism and criticism by weaving them together.

Journalism's ultimate purpose is to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests.

I was raised by a formidable woman. She always pushed me to be competitive in a man's world. That's maybe one of the attractions to journalism in the beginning. It was a male profession, and I was comfortable in that.

I obviously prefer writing novels but I take my journalism very seriously, and I enjoy doing it between novels. It gives me an opportunity to move in the outside world.

I've heard it said that the first law of journalism is to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.

Journalism is just the art of capturing behavior.

The Defense Department's plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment.

Journalism encourages haste ... and haste is the enemy of art.

I think what is happening is that Houthis and the Iranians have common interests, but there's very little good journalism that's been done to uncover the true extent of that relationship between the Houthis and Iran. But, obviously, I do think that they - they benefit from the rhetoric of the Houthis on the ground. But, also, they do have a connection, but not to the extent that is being covered in the media at the moment by describing them as a Shia militia backed by Iran. I think that's an overstatement.

Like I said, you guys in the media will treat the dumbest jack**s in the entire f***ng world like they won a Pulitzer prize for journalism and will put that level of weight on it, like they're an ambassador to some country we're trying to establish trade with.

Any good broadcast, not just an Olympic broadcast, should have texture to it. It should have information, should have some history, should have something that's offbeat, quirky, humorous, and where called for it, should have journalism, and judiciously it should also have commentary. That's my ideal.

We are moving rapidly from an era of an oligopoly of content providers to an oligopoly of content controllers: new choke points. This is not media consolidation in the traditional sense, where a few huge conglomerates used economies of scale to dominate journalism by dominating the local and national agendas. This consolidation, to a very few companies plus increasing government intervention, is even more dangerous - and information providers of all kinds are finally starting to grasp what’s happening.

Journalism has become a sort of competitive screeching: what is trivial but noisy and immediate takes precedence over important matters that develop over time.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

I often plagiarize from myself. I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.

Pulitzer's Gold is a goldmine of inspiration for both journalists and non-journalists. Those in the newspaper business, who now find themselves obsessing about staff cutbacks and circulation declines, should embrace this book as a reminder of the highest ideals, and the absolute thrills, to be found in their profession. As for regular readers, Pulitzer's Gold offers marvelous storytelling, real-life adventures, and absolute proof that journalism can change our world for the better.

Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

I came over here and worked for rock magazines, and I worked for Rolling Stone, which has a very high standard of journalism, a very good research department.

The basic problem is with the business model of journalism. That business model is premised on the idea that talk is cheap and reporting is expensive.

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

Journalism is a great profession. It's complicated now. People talk about the demise of investigative reporting. I was a judge in some award contest recently, and the stuff that is being done by major newspapers, and local, regional papers around the country, is great. Newspapers play an amazing role in our society, and I still think they are important. I'm sorry newspaper circulation is down. Ultimately, the importance of newspapers can't be replaced.

A mere chronicle of observed events will produce only journalism; combined with a sensitive memory, it can produce art.

For me, a really radical position for journalism to take is to stop being cynical. Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.

During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: “Look out! They're about to smack you around again!

In journalism, if there's a hole in your story you figure out a way around it because you've got a 4 p.m. deadline. It's a neat skill to have but it's deadly for literature. In literature, you need to stare at that hole, not ignore it. You need to figure it out.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

Journalism, some huge percentage of it, should be devoted to putting pressure on power, on nonsense, on chicanery of all kinds and if that's going to invite a lawsuit, well, bring it on.

If you've done a bit of journalism, everyone assumes you must be moving into PR. We're absolutely not becoming a PR agency and we're not turning into Brunswick. We will remain SRU, but we will be owned by the Brunswick Group. It's quite different.

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund's goal is to produce a broad range of investigative journalism created by both staff reporters and freelance writers, with a focus on working with the many experienced reporters and writers impacted by the economic contraction. The pieces will range from long-form investigations to short breaking news stories and will be presented in a variety of media - including text, audio, and video.

I don't have any well-developed philosophy about journalism. Ultimately it is important in a society like this, so people can know about everything that goes wrong.

You have to see the stories [The New York Times] have written, it's one after another, after another, and facts mean nothing, third-rate journalism. The great editors of the past from the New York Times and others, ladies and gentlemen, are spinning in their grave.

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.