Best 546 quotes in «journalism quotes» category

If you were told that a new race of giant snails was going to take over the earth and abolish mankind, how would you react?" "I'd react by considering my informant and questioning where he got his information. If he had even the slightest snail-horn of information, I'd follow it out. I'd try my mightiest to find out whether there really was a new race of giant snails trying to take over. I'd examine all the evidence my informant could give me, and all that I could invent myself, always with an eye as to how I could turn it to account. I'd consider the treatment -- quizzical, facetious, sensational, or who-knows-after-all? -- even before I had anything to treat. If there were any real evidence, Doctor, i'd really follow it out. I can see the banner on my feature piece, On the Track of the Giant Snail, in my mind's-eye now. Believe me, I'd try to be the first to interview the snail leader." "You would actually spend time on such a report, Mr. Foley?" "Yes. I may SPEND TIME on that very thing whenever I'm through with what I'm on now. There's bound to be an interesting story in it; if not of the giant snails themselves, then perhaps a story of a man who believed in giant snails.

I got a call froma cynical young American journalist...You know the sort. He's lived in the Middle East for a little over five minutes so assumes he knows us natives well. I sip at a skinny mocha frappe while he fires off big important questions about 'the political landscape' and 'Islamic thought'. I stare at him blankly.

I have had my mother's wing of my genetic ancestry analyzed by the National Geographic tracing service and there it all is: the arrow moving northward from the African savannah, skirting the Mediterranean by way of the Levant, and passing through Eastern and Central Europe before crossing to the British Isles. And all of this knowable by an analysis of the cells on the inside of my mouth. I almost prefer the more rambling and indirect and journalistic investigation, which seems somehow less… deterministic.

I imagined it was far better to be optimistic, to proceed assuming wherever you could that you had cared enough, that you'd made a difference, that you would again. Dwelling on the worst was no way to live.

Il nous faut remplacer les mourants, et les mourants savent qu’ils ne valent que pour ce qu’ils ont transmis.

I'm a professional journalist. Making up lies to fit the facts - it's what we do.

I'm sorry if Fox news hasn't told you this.... that doesn't mean it's not true.

I'm sure it's all journalism [...] It means it's true enough for now.

In addition, the distortion of actual crime statistics vs. media coverage, shows that news outlets portray black Americans being depicted as suspects or criminals at a rate that exceeds actual arrest statistics for those same crimes by a whopping 24 percentage points- a disparity which reveals a horrific implicit bias in reporting.

In a time when society is drowning in tsunamis of misinformation, it is possible to change the world for the better if we repeat the truth often and loud enough.

In almost all other professions a man must be able to observe carefully and report accurately what he has seen. Those qualifications are unnecessary for journalists, however, since their job is to write sensational stories that sell newspapers.

In a story on the U.S.-brokered security pact between the government of Sudan and southern rebel groups, the New York Times referred to the war in Sudan as "a pet cause of many American religious conservatives." It is hard to imagine the Times describing the plight of Soviet Jewry as a "pet cause" of American Jews, or opposition to apartheid as a "pet cause" of African-Americans.

In fact, among the people I met, the term soviet served essentially as a synonym for 'fucked up'. I'd been in the country about three days when a car that was sent to take me to an interview failed to start. After several attempts to get it going, the driver turned to me, smiled wearily and explained: 'Soviet car'. By that time, that was all the explanation I needed.

Indeed, to this day, I think if you blame everything on the government, you're not just wrong, you're being reckless. It's as silly as blaming everything on the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, or insert-bad-guy-here. But I do believe that someone must ask the hard questions, especially of our elected officials as well as powerful men who become members of so-called secret societies. Remember: Governments don't lie. People lie. And if you want the real story, you need to find out more about those people.

I noticed a couple of dark things flying in a zigzagging pattern near the lights. I wondered what kind of night-flying strange birds they could be. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were bats.

In newspaper-land a dull lie is seldom detected, but an interesting exaggeration drives an unimaginative rival to hysterical denunciations.

Innovation and disruption are ideas that originated in the arena of business but which have since been applied to arenas whose values and goals are remote from the values and goals of business. People aren’t disk drives. Public schools, colleges and universities, churches, museums, and many hospitals, all of which have been subjected to disruptive innovation, have revenues and expenses and infrastructures, but they aren’t industries in the same way that manufacturers of hard-disk drives or truck engines or drygoods are industries. Journalism isn’t an industry in that sense, either. Doctors have obligations to their patients, teachers to their students, pastors to their congregations, curators to the public, and journalists to their readers--obligations that lie outside the realm of earnings, and are fundamentally different from the obligations that a business executive has to employees, partners, and investors. Historically, institutions like museums, hospitals, schools, and universities have been supported by patronage, donations made by individuals or funding from church or state. The press has generally supported itself by charging subscribers and selling advertising. (Underwriting by corporations and foundations is a funding source of more recent vintage.) Charging for admission, membership, subscriptions and, for some, earning profits are similarities these institutions have with businesses. Still, that doesn’t make them industries, which turn things into commodities and sell them for gain.

In politics, the pen is at its heaviest because it is weighed down by the collective responsibility it holds towards its people and their future in the eyes of the world.

In some respect Journalism is like science, the best ideas were one that survived and strengthened by opposition.

Internet kalau sudah berada di desktop laptop, komputer bergerak, dan ponsep pintar, tampak seperti benda tak berjiwa. Akan tetapi, di dalamnya terjadi pergerakan dan perubahan yang dahsyat, penuh gejolak, dan hasilnya sulit diduga

Interviews were invented to make journalism less passive. Instead of waiting for something to happen, journalists ask someone what should or could happen.

In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice.

I pointed out that the very proliferation of pseudo journalism these days, the cacophony of conjecture and partisan agendas and sensationalism that seem orchestrated above all to provoke and entertain, tended to leave me feeling as though I know less than ever what my government is doing in my name. Drinking, Alistair shrugged and nodded as if to concede: Yes, well, there's always the moronic inferno.

I swear it only hit me then, with full conscious force, who the real villains of this piece had been from start to finish…those lying, cancerous dogs of the mainstream media!

I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism." [Interview with Ron Powers (Chicago Sun Times) for Playboy, 1973]

It is nine o'clock, and London has breakfasted. Some unconsidered tens of thousands have, it is true, already enjoyed with what appetite they might their pre-prandial meal; the upper fifty thousand, again, have not yet left their luxurious couches, and will not breakfast till ten, eleven o'clock, noon; nay, there shall be sundry listless, languid members of fast military clubs, dwellers among the tents of Jermyn Street, and the high-priced second floors of Little Ryder Street, St. James's, upon whom one, two, and three o'clock in the afternoon shall be but as dawn, and whose broiled bones and devilled kidneys shall scarcely be laid on the damask breakfast-cloth before Sol is red in the western horizon. I wish that, in this age so enamoured of statistical information, when we must needs know how many loads of manure go to every acre of turnip-field, and how many jail-birds are thrust into the black hole per mensem for fracturing their pannikins, or tearing their convict jackets, that some M'Culloch or Caird would tabulate for me the amount of provisions, solid and liquid, consumed at the breakfasts of London every morning. I want to know how many thousand eggs are daily chipped, how many of those embryo chickens are poached, and how many fried; how many tons of quartern loaves are cut up to make bread-and-butter, thick and thin; how many porkers have been sacrificed to provide the bacon rashers, fat and streaky ; what rivers have been drained, what fuel consumed, what mounds of salt employed, what volumes of smoke emitted, to catch and cure the finny haddocks and the Yarmouth bloaters, that grace our morning repast. Say, too, Crosse and Blackwell, what multitudinous demands are matutinally made on thee for pots of anchovy paste and preserved tongue, covered with that circular layer - abominable disc! - of oleaginous nastiness, apparently composed of rancid pomatum, but technically known as clarified butter, and yet not so nasty as that adipose horror that surrounds the truffle bedecked pate  de  foie gras. Say, Elizabeth Lazenby, how many hundred bottles of thy sauce (none of which are genuine unless signed by thee) are in request to give a relish to cold meat, game, and fish. Mysteries upon mysteries are there connected with nine o'clock breakfasts.

I think I was always interested in the larger world, even as a kid, and my experiences as a journalist only heightened that interest. Covering conflict, I learned that though leaders often try to create a sense of "us" and "them," the differences are not that delineated. I often felt like it was a whole bunch of "us," with some of "them" scattered around. That made me feel that the borders we draw around ourselves are often artificial.

I think that of all the principles for journalism, the most important is to complicate simple things and simplify complicated things. At first sight, you may think something is simple, but it may conceal a great deal. However, facing a very complex thing, you should find out its essence. -Jin Yongquan

It is in the combination of words and visuals that the magic of understanding often happens.

It is not commercial success but originality and proof of autonomy which are admired.

I think journalism anywhere should be based on social justice and impartiality, making contributions to society as well as taking responsibility in society. Whether you are capitalist or socialist or Marxist, journalists should have the same professional integrity. --Tan Hongkai

It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.

It is the vice of the journalist, I once wrote, to think that history can always be reduced to experience, and of the scholar to think that experience can always be reduced to history. History and experience are far more frequently out of sync, or running on parallel tracks.

It's not the news that makes the newspaper, but the newspaper that makes the news.

It's great being a journalist, because our office is the world.

It's one thing to put on your nation's uniform to give your life for your country. But to dress up in black-market khakis and head into battle in a borrowed bush hat, armed only with a Nikon camera, 10 rolls of film and notebook, is definitely another thing.

It sounds cool to say you are going to fight with a pen not a sword but violence with words is still violence ..

It's the great flax of journalism: The more something happens, the less newsworthy it is. We have follow the same trajectory as the stock market---sustained and unstoppable growth.

I've always wanted to be a journalist, but what am I going to do? Write articles about which movie star had the fat sucked from her ass and injected into her face? Which professional athlete just confessed to shooting steroids? The last celebrity baby names?" Cara lowered both brows in frustration. "Who cares?

It's very painful... I see a lot of poverty. I see a lot of spiritual poverty. This is a nation that has been deceived and abused. And you can't be a happy people when your reality is based on deception... we're causing incredible harm to countries like Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan... but the other side of the sword is cutting us.

It was breathtaking. It felt like being inside the beating heart of that pulsating, exotic nation.

I used to think the most important thing for a reporter was to be where the news is and be the first to know. Now I feel a reporter should be able to effect change. Your reporting should move people and motivate people to change the world. Maybe this is too idealistic. Young people who want to be journalists must, first, study and, second, recognize that they should never be the heroes of the story. ..A journalist must be curious, and must be humble. --Zhou Yijun

I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full picture of what was happening in Iraq so they can decide whether they supported our presence there.

I was driven to go into book writing by the very nature of journalism and blogging. Both are ephemeral. Journalists and bloggers can have humongous egos. But in the end, what they write is really a passing show. I wanted something more lasting — a record of sorts, something people can look back to and relish again like hot, home–brewed coffee.

I want to be a journalist again. I want to make a difference in the world.

Mayor Walmsley is using the typical Jim Crow manipulation tactics to deflect the blame and guilt. He's a classic racist politician with an ulterior motive,” says Ora.

Journalism! it's a rude art

Lubię pisać listy. Zawsze myślałem, że gdybym urodził się w bogatej rodzinie i trzysta lat temu tam, gdzie urodziłem się w biedzie, we Florencji, chciałbym tylko podróżować po całym świecie, żeby pisać listy. Dziennikarstwo do pewnego stopnia pozwoliłó mi robić coś podobnego, ale byłem ograniczony iłością miejsca, terminami, wymogami języka. Teraz w końcu mogę po prostu pisać listy.

Magazines and newspapers used to think of themselves as something coherent--an issue, an edition, an institution. Not as the publisher of dozens of discrete pieces to be trafficked each day on Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Manipulating the media is akin to poisoning a nation’s water supply – it affects all of our lives in unimaginable ways.