Journalism is not a precise science, it's a crude art
Dan RatherRead
If you're in Journalism and you're looking for friends, you should get a dog.
Interpretation
Journalism can be a lonely profession, and friendships may be scarce in it.
Dan Rather's quote humorously suggests that journalism is a demanding field that often requires prioritizing work over personal relationships. The implication is that one may find more loyalty and companionship in a pet than in the competitive and sometimes harsh world of journalism.
In practice
Using this quote at a journalism seminar to lighten the mood.
Journalism is not a precise science, it's a crude art
Only votes talk, everything else walks.
From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.
A college degree is the key to realizing the American dream, well worth the financial sacrifice because it is supposed to open the door to a world of opportunity.
Covering the civil-rights movement was a mind- and eye-opener for me. Houston was a segregated society, as was Texas as a whole - some of it by law, a lot of it by fear and tradition. But there was no violence where I lived, and if there was hate, it was either concealed from me or I just didn't recognize it.
Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.
Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.
My favourite kind of comedy comes from the awkwardness of living, the stuff that makes you cringe but borders on tragic - that is more interesting to me. It resonates; it comes from emotional truth.
Bill Door was impressed. Miss Flitworth could actually give the word "revenue", which had two vowels and one diphthong, all the peremptoriness of the word "scum.
Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
I don't mind anything that's written about me, as long as it's not true.
I have a sense of humor; but over the years that sense has developed one blind spot. I can no longer laugh at ignorance or stupidity. Those are our chief enemies, and it is dangerous to make fun of them.
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