Quotes About Journalism

The ‘I’ character in journalism is almost pure invention. Unlike the ‘I’ of autobiography, who is meant to be seen as a representation of the writer, the ‘I’ of journalism is connected to the writer only in a tenuous way—the way, say, that Superman is connected to Clark Kent. The journalistic ‘I’ is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.

I'm even stunned at some of the majors you can get in college these days. Like you can major in the mating habits of the Australian rabbit bat, major in leisure studies... Okay, get a journalism major. Okay, education major, journalism major. Right. Philosophy major, right. Archeology major. I don't know, whatever it is. Major in ballroom dance, of course. It doesn't replace work. How about a major in film studies? How about a major in black studies? How about a major in women studies? How about a major in home ec? Oops, sorry! No such thing.

The New York Times I think really is the gold standard of a certain type of journalism and in some ways it's the most important type of journalism, this chronicle of the biggest and most important stories of our time covered with a level of rigor and seriousness that is really unparalleled.

Comedians, such as yourself, Jon Stewart and others, are a valuable supplement, and here's why: Good journalism at its best frequently speaks truth to power. What's happened with journalists - again, I don't except myself from this criticism - in some ways we've lost our guts. We need a spine transplant. What's happened is comedians, in their own way, speak truth to power and fill that vacuum that we in journalism have too often left, particularly post 9/11.

I think everybody's talking about like facts and truth and you know like that 'We're here to fact check' and all of that, that's the base material of journalism. You cannot have journalism without facts and truth. But if facts and truth were what actually you know sort of moved people's lives and moved their decision-making like the election would have had a different outcome.

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.

The current state of music journalism is not bad, but it's not great at all. Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool. But there are too many magazines, and the access has been diminished, so the quality of profiles has gone way down. Internet stuff can be really good, though. I like the dialogue between fans on the Internet. I think that's the best rock writing that's going on right now.

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.

Confrontation is not a dirty word. Sometimes it's the best kind of journalism as long you don't confront people just for the sake of a confrontation.

We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country, or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia.

Journalism is always the art of the incomplete. You get bits and pieces.

Journalism is caring where the fire-engines are going.

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

We have lost the good old British spirit. Instead we have American journalism and black-shirted buffoons making a cheap imitation of ice-cream sellers.

Joe Klein is the flower of American political journalism, a sharp raconteur who shows traces of the gonzo style that was in vogue when he was honing his craft at Rolling Stone back in the day.

The country is only as strong as its journalism - that's the way democracies work. The higher the quality of the information, the better informed the electorate is and the better the government runs.

After two years studying what rewrite men did with the facts I phoned them, I knew that journalism was essentially a task of stringing together seamlessly an endless series of cliches.

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.

A rat called Possible New Strain was sitting under a spaghetti strainer held down with a pile of journalism textbooks, saying rude things in rat-speak.

There is no more respected or influential forum in the field of journalism than the New York Times. I look forward, with great anticipation, to contributing to its op-ed page

Ratings don't last. Good journalism does.

It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written.

Journalism classes teach us that one must extract oneself from the story in order to report without bias, but often we need to be in the story in order to understand, to connect, to help the audience identify or else it has no heart; it could be a robot telling the story, for all anyone cares.

As for journalism education, there are some terrifically exciting things going on in some schools. Others are struggling to adapt. Curriculum changes can be slow, by design. Yet there are arguably more dynamic minds, old and young, gravitating to teaching than ever before, both on the research and scholarly side and on the side of what is called "professional practice," a term that usually refers to experienced journalists without Ph.D's moving to the academy.

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.

And I've been incredibly lucky to have a long career in journalism that has given me a front-row seat to some of the most important moments in modern American political life.

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 competitive advantage professional journalism enjoys over the free is just that: professional journalists, whose paid positions give them the time and resources they need to commit more fully to the task. If we can't do better, so be it.

Thanks to my solid academic training, today I can write hundreds of words on virtually any topic without possessing a shred of information which is how I got a good job in journalism.

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 can tell you many reasons why environmental stories don't get adequate attention in conventional media. Basically, environmental risks don't fit the norms of journalism. They're incremental. We hate incremental.

There is no doubt that the way journalism worked when I was growing up and getting started has changed forever.

You can't just reprise the news. You have to have journalism that makes a point and you have to be in sync with your audience.

As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.

I never did any training in journalism or in finance, so I really was in the deep end. I got very good at going to press conferences and nodding. I'd figure it out when I got back to the office. Charts and numbers. I've never been great with facts, ever, my whole life. For a journalist, that's not a very good trait.

I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree.

Coaching soccer, like disciplines including journalism, you'll always learn if you're open to it, you'll learn from your players. If that's being smart, fair enough.

Writing in journalism teaches you to be very comfortable taking criticism, being edited, and rewriting.

I've always liked the old-school journalism approach. I don't have to take a side on any controversial issue. I get to present various sides. And my goal, as a journalist covering the Bible beat, is to present the strengths and weaknesses of each side - to the extent that readers can't tell what my opinion is. That's easy enough for me to do much of the time because I'm as confused as the next guy, and trusting a lot on Jesus for what I don't understand.

I dont personally feel that I have to save democracy and journalism.

No, that’s journalism. The truth is whatever you can’t escape.

The tremendous challenge of narrative journalism about subjects that are underreported is, how do you make people care about something they think they already know about, or think they don't need to know about?

A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.

Journalism consists in buying white paper at two cents a pound and selling it at ten cents a pound.

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism.

Folks, Brian Williams isn't the exception. He's exactly what they've taught us to expect from them all. It's not journalism any more - it's entertainment, it's celebrity, it's agendas and it's money. All too often, a lie is now an acceptable way of communicating. To the media, a lie has as much value as the truth.

Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law

Since I was a graduate student, I've done a lot of journalism on the side, for The Village Voice, The Nation etc. And my greatest passion, as a reader, has always been nonfiction, with its vast, often underestimated imaginative and formal possibilities and its aura of the real. I find that combination seductive.