Quotes on Journalism

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault.

One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.

Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.

If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.

The upside of web-based journalism is that everybody gets a chance. The downside is that everybody gets a chance.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

I violated, apparently, an unspoken rule that we are supposed to take care of our own. Frankly, if that invites discomfort, I welcome it. I don't think there's enough discomfort in journalism, especially in Washington.

Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.

In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.

Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.

I'm interested in non-fiction, but a form of it which is very badly behaved, which doesn't define itself as straight-ahead journalism or memoir. It blurs boundaries, plays fast and loose with the truth - not to be silly, whimsical or lazy, but to get greater purchase on what it feels like to be alive.

I've already become a mastodon in print - I don't see a consciousness for my kind of journalism.

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.

Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, that’s not journalism. That's gossip. Journalism was invented as an antidote to gossip.

Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.

In journalism, we recognize a kind of hierarchy of fame among the famous. We measure it in two ways: by the length of an obituary and by how far in advance it is prepared. Presidents, former presidents, and certain heads of state are at the top of the chain.

A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.

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

My only advice is, follow your dream and do whatever you like to do the most. I chose journalism because I wanted to be in the places where history was being made.

The most profound lessons about journalism I've learned have been taught to me by the people I've covered.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.