Journalism Quotes

News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.

Where are you coming up with this crap?

Great journalism does not get enough credit in our society, but it holds the powerful to account and plays a vital part in a functioning democracy.

It’s not so much that American public life is more idiotic. It’s that so much more of American life is public. I think that goes a long way to explaining what seems to be a ‘decline.’ Everything is documented, and little of it is edited. Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.

Journalism is just a gun. It's only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that's all you need. Aim it right and you can blow a kneecap off the world.

Here is what I was taught: Pitch five stories at a time and keep your pitches very short (two or three sentences, max). This advice has always stood me in good stead. If they say no to all five at once, you know you’re barking up the wrong tree.

If WikiLeaks is a terrorist organisation, as New York congressman Pete King stated, and if its founder, Julian Assange, is prosecuted for espionage, the future of investigative journalism everywhere is in jeopardy, as is our right as citizens to be told the truth

When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.

The Times is speechless, and takes three columns to express its speechlessness.

The genuine role of the media, the role it must adopt if society is to function in a practically and morally coherent way, is to reveal power, to pester power, to hound it with questions. Because power cannot be trusted.

Journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones Dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive

In the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost of Edward R. Murrow.

The difference between a journalist and an historian is that the historian knows the difference.

Nor ever once ashamed
So we be named
Press-men; Slaves of the Lamp; Servants of Light.

If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it.

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret.