I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.
Bob WoodwardRead
I think people are smart enough to sort it out. They know when they're watching one of these food fight shows where journalists sit around and yell and scream at each other, versus serious issue reporting.
Interpretation
People can discern the quality of journalism and understand the difference between sensationalism and serious reporting.
Bob Woodward emphasizes that audiences are capable of recognizing the difference between superficial, sensationalized media content, often characterized by loud arguments and drama, and genuine, serious journalism that deals with important issues. He suggests that viewers are knowledgeable enough to make informed judgments about the media they consume.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the state of journalism at a media conference.
I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.
There's hostility to lying, and there should be.
Newspapers that are truly independent, like The Washington Post, can still aggressively investigate anyone or anything with no holds barred.
The legislator learns that when you talk a lot, you get in trouble. You have to listen a lot to make deals.
The central dilemma in journalism is that you don't know what you don't know.
I'm not going to name some of my colleagues who are very well-known for their television presentation, but they wouldn't know new information or how to report a story if it came up and bit them.
Too many of our conversations in the media hinge on conflict delivered in three-second sound bites.
I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor - not a commentator or analyst.
I suppose popularity is measured by ratings. If a broadcaster is known as the leader because of ratings, then that's where people most want to be seen and heard, so there's no question that there's an advantage.
Television is democracy at its ugliest.
Americans born since World War II have grown up in a media-saturated environment. From childhood, we have developed a sort of advertising literacy, which combines appreciation for technique with skepticism about motives. We respond to ads with at least as much rhetorical intelligence as we apply to any other form of persuasion.
The reporting of news has to be understood as propaganda for commodities, and events by images.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.