We cannot make good news out of bad practice.
Interpretation
Good outcomes cannot emerge from unethical or poor practices.
Edward R. Murrow's quote emphasizes the importance of ethical standards and integrity in journalism and all professions. It suggests that negative actions and poor practices will inevitably lead to negative results, thereby underscoring the need for accountability and professionalism in the pursuit of truth and quality news.
In practice
You can use this quote when giving a speech at a journalism conference.
We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
We all have our likes and our dislikes. But... when we're doing news - when we're doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we're doing the daily news, covering politics - it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.
The biggest problem I have in journalism is being quoted or misquoted and then being asked to defend something I haven't said.
My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.
In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren't just covering a story, they're a part of it - influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates - and despite what they tell themselves, it's impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively.
The most important ethical issues and the most difficult ones are the human ones because a reporter has enormous power to hurt people.
I don't think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It's lonely out here.
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