Journalism Quotes
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Virgil Thomson, the great classical music critic, who was also a composer, but said that criticism was the only antidote he knew to pay publicity. Critics at their best are independent voices people take seriously their responsibility to see as many things as they can see, put them in the widest possible perspective, educate their readers, I really do think of myself as a teacher. Newspapers that don't carry arts criticism at all while not fulfill this function. And probably their arts journalism will be deprived as a result.
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Journalism is a character defect. I think most non-journalists would agree with this. It is life lived at a safe remove: standing off to one side of the parade as it passes, noting its flaws, offering glib and unworkable suggestions for its improvement. Every journalist must know that this is not, really, how a serious-minded person would choose to spend his days. Serious-minded people do things; a journalist chatters about the things serious-minded people do, and so, not coincidentally, avoids having to do them himself. A significant body of research indicates that non-journalists find us insufferable, perhaps for this reason.
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If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.
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I don't really trust politicians, and our job is to call them out. It's old-school journalism.
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Theorists of journalism have long noted parallels to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in physics: by reporting on something, one subtly but irrevocably changes it.
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I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people.
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Rule number one of journalism is that trying to get in between a journalist and a story he wants to tell is like trying to stop a herd of stampeding cattle.
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London is one of the world's centres of Arab journalism and political activism. The failure of left and right, the establishment and its opposition, to mount principled arguments against clerical reaction has had global ramifications. Ideas minted in Britain – the notion that it is bigoted to oppose bigotry; 'Islamophobic' to oppose clerics whose first desire is to oppress Muslims – swirl out through the press and the net to lands where they can do real harm.
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Journalism is the closest thing I have to a religion, because I believe deeply in the role and responsibility the journalists have to the people of a self-governing community.
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What journalism is really about-it's to monitor power and the centres of power.
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Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist's job is very interesting.
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The sole aim of journalism should be service.
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The story of journalism, on a day-to-day basis, is the story of the interaction of reporters and officials
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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.
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A lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible.
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The quality of our journalism will make or break our industry, not the recession.
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When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.
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There was a lot of tabloid journalism about my supposed sex addiction. Bullshit. It's all bullshit. I mean, come on, I never pretended to be a saint. But give me a break.
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I think my journalism is for readers who are smart and know that most people are lying to them, or being patronizing...
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I grew up in the traditional American newspaper world with a morning paper and an afternoon paper competing with each other beat by beat by beat. It was the most fun I've ever had. And it was great for journalism.
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Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.
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Journalism is about covering important stories-with a pillow, until they stop moving.
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I certainly don't mean to suggest that all investigative journalism prior to 9/11 in the US was praiseworthy. But there were more examples to which one could point, and there were at last some activist photographers who understood that getting information into the public sphere in spite of military censorship was a right and obligation within democracy. That strain in war journalism did nearly vanish during that time.
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All journalism is investigative to a greater or lesser extent, but investigative journalism – though it is a bit of a tautology – is that because it requires more, it's where the investigative element is more pronounced.
