Best 546 quotes in «journalism quotes» category

Traditional journalism, where reporters deliver information in a balanced and unbiased fashion, is rapidly fading into obscurity. This is especially evident on television where high profile reporters become bigger than the story, delivering news with large dollops of personality and wit – almost as if they are actors.

Unfortunately, mainstream news has become infotainment, sharing more in common with the entertainment industry than with traditional journalism. Gossip, characterizations and injections of drama are subtly infused with facts, altering the truth in a similar way to how dramatists twist true stories to create greater excitement.

Until he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.

War correspondents share something with soldiers; when they opt for this profession they know the dangers.

Washingtonians love the "So-and-so is spinning in his grave" cliché. Someone is always speculating about how some great dead American would be scandalized over some crime against How It Used to Be. The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated).

We are led to believe that we are in a democracy with a free press. When the evidence shows that we have neither. We're in a very serious situation.

We are drifting into some ugly parallels here, and if I'd written this kind of thing two years ago I'd pick up the New York Times and see myself mangled all over the Op-Ed page... And then beaten into a bloody coma the next evening by some hired thugs in an alley behind the National Press Building.....

We have more ways to get our news than ever, which is supposed to be a good thing, because more competition is supposed to challenge you to do better. However, in this social media age, what is has done is allowed the information business to be a free- rein free-for-all. Old rules of journalistic integrity have been thrown out the window. Everyone has been given the conch, and no one knows what to do with it. Instead of using the new-media landscape to spur us to higher quality, we have instead become sloppier than ever: Tweet first, research later. Post first, rescind later. Guess first, confirm later.

When people support you when you have done something wrong. It doesnt mean you are right, but it means those people are promoting their hate , bad behavior or living their bad lives through you.

When words lose their meaning and their capacity to bind those who use them, neither democracy nor the rule of law can long survive.

While a ribbon awaits Usain Bolt at the finishing line, for people like us, there is a concrete wall. When you reach the finishing line, you run straight into that wall. Everything, your job, your credibility, your life itself, is at stake.

Yet in general all writers can really do is lift a sensitive finger to the cultural breeze and sense a coming change in the weather; very seldom do they actually change it themselves.

You cannot put yours and yourself in danger just to overcome your fear.

You need to know the constituency you belong to...and that is revealed by your constituents. When your constituents are speaking in public and making of stories, your constituency can be "journalism".

You see, Monsieur, it's worth everything, isn't it, to keep one's intellectual liberty, not to enslave one's powers of appreciation, one's critical independence? It was because of that that I abandoned journalism, and took to so much duller work: tutoring and private secretaryship. There is a good deal of drudgery, of course; but one preserves one's moral freedom, what we call in French one's quant a soi. And when one hears good talk one can join in it without compromising any opinions but one's own; or one can listen, and answer it inwardly. Ah, good conversation--there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing. And so I have never regretted giving up either diplomacy or journalism--two different forms of the same self-abdication." He fixed his vivid eyes on Archer as he lit another cigarette. "Voyez-vous, Monsieur, to be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it? But, after all, one must earn enough to pay for the garret; and I confess that to grow old as a private tutor--or a `private' anything--is almost as chilling to the imagination as a second secretaryship at Bucharest. Sometimes I feel I must make a plunge: an immense plunge. Do you suppose, for instance, there would be any opening for me in America-- in New York?

A career in journalism suddenly lost its appeal.

Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.

What did journalists know of tech, anyway? Who gave a damn about the press? We were the Good Guys. Changing the World. Doing the Important Stuff.

...what I'm getting at is like the distinction between tourist and a traveler. The tourist experience is superficial and glancing. The traveler develops a deeper connection with her surroundings. She is more invested in them -- the traveler stays longer, makes her own plans, chooses her own destination, and usually travels alone: solo travel and solo participation, although the most difficult emotionally, seem the most likely to produce a good story.

A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

A good newspaper is never nearly good enough but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.

A good reporter remains a skeptic all his life.

A journalist is a person who has mistaken their calling.

A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.

A journal should be neither an echo nor a pander.

Almost everything I've learned about journalism has been from other friends who are journalists, taking advantage of the money I hope they don't think they threw away at j-school. I studied comparative literature, but the professional vagaries of journalism I've learned through other people's trial and error, and my own.

Al journalism should be investigative, from football to cookery

And I started as a journalism major at Ohio State, ended up in theater and I love to read.

Always verify your references.

American journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor.

American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic.

Among the reasons that you go into journalism, I suppose, are some rather idealistic, even foolish reasons. In my case one of the reasons was I wanted to explain how things really work, how political power really works.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.

And then I settled into the most natural thing for a man with no real talents. Journalism.

Anyone that is able to put a high school film and gonzo journalism together, it's like, "Yes, please!

Angry and frustrated, the journalists set about making bricks without straw.

Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible.

As a professional journalist, I have always been fascinated by people who appear to have even more spare time than I do.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism.

As the saying goes: "If you're not part of the solution, you're a newspaper columnist.

When moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight.

As the newspaper industry continues to contract, one of the most commonly voiced fears is that serious investigative journalism will be among the victims of the scaleback. And, indeed, many newspapers are drastically reducing their investigative teams.

Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.

At the core of investigative journalism is exactly the same thing that drives a page-turning thriller: telling a great story.

Choosing my favorite moment in journalism would be like picking a favorite among my children. I can't pick one favorite.

Being a journalist, Hacker had no particular talent for reporting facts.

Chris Matthews can't start any sentence without 'Let me ask you this... ' And I love Chris Matthews! But almost everybody in journalism does it. Who's stopping you? Just say it!

Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.