Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation.
Ted KoppelRead
My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the challenge of presenting objective reality to the public in a timely manner.
Ted Koppel reflects on the responsibilities of journalism, highlighting the difficulty in conveying an accurate depiction of reality to the audience quickly. He underscores the importance of objectivity in reporting, illustrating the challenges that journalists face in the fast-paced world of news delivery.
In practice
During a journalism conference, one might use this quote to emphasize the challenges of the profession.
Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation.
Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach.
Set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed.
You can almost measure where you are in life by the degree to which you have begun looking back rather than ahead.
People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.
There's harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points in the same direction regardless of fashion or trend.
The Center for Public Integrity is the real thing. A group of dedicated people who remember that great journalism is about grit and guts and stamina and razor-sharp instincts. They are, thank heaven, here to stay.
The most important ethical issues and the most difficult ones are the human ones because a reporter has enormous power to hurt people.
I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'
The difference between Rappler and other newsgroups in the Philippines is that journalists control Rappler both editorially and commercially. We make decisions that are bad for business but protect the public sphere.
When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me.
I take a certain pride in having maintained a reputation for fast copy throughout my newspaper career. Fast-breaking stories left my typewriter in a hurry. Not great literature, perhaps, but fast, and usually accurate.
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