Journalism

"I do not think that journalism is a dying art. If anything, I believe it is more important than ever, and journalists worldwide are adapting to our modus operandi - to make public officials accountable to the people. The role of the journalist is indispensable, and as reviled as reporters may intermittently be, they are still highly respected when the pursue the truth and obtain positive results. It is my hope that future journalists will adhere to the true principles of the profession and understand that they play a vital role in helping to keep democracy and the exchange of free ideas alive at home and abroad."

"So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here—not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."

"Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits— a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

"Journalism is the one thing that protects us. There's a history of crusading, let–the–chips–fall–where–they–may journalists. But that's given way to 'advocacy journalists,' who have left– or right–wing biases. That doesn't make sense. The only thing a journalist should worship is the truth."

"I mean to work for 60 Minutes, and be able to go any place in the world, do any story, have enough time on the air, et cetera, there is simply no job in journalism like it. At the beginning, it was a dream. Even now, at the age of 84, I work with people who are half my age or less, and it is the draw of the story. If there is a good story going, why not be there?"

"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead."

"It's a truism that denials never quite catch up with charges. Honest journalists who may have mistakenly printed false information know that the most prominent retraction never quite undoes the damage done by the original publication."

"It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes. Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle? And when these four are joined together they make a terrible force, and constitute the new authority."

"In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke? - called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism."

"In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately, in America journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt, people are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. but it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated. In England, journalism, except in a few well-known instances, not having been carried to such excesses of brutality, is still a great factor, a remarkable power. The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people's private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary."

"Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist and entirely limit the artist. English public opinion, that is to say, tries to constrain and impede and warp the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and compels the journalist to retail things that are ugly, or disgusting, or revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the world and the most indecent newspapers."

"The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands."

"There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not."

"Ernest: But what is the difference between Literature and Journalism? Gilbert: Journalism is unreadable and Literature is not read. That is all."

"As for modern Journalism, its not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest."

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to."

"If somebody came from Mars to America and went around for months or years, and then you asked them who has the best jobs, they would say the journalists, because the journalists get to make momentary entries into people's lives when they are interesting, and get out when they cease to be interesting."

"I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth."

"A Statesman is an easy man, He tells his lies by rote; A Journalist makes up his lies, And takes you by the throat."

"Journalism today is for the most part gentlemanly and decorous, in so far as the relations among newspapers in the big cities are concerned. But in that day the New York dailies openly assailed one another's actions and motives with all the contempt that lily-white citizens might express toward horse-thieves and road agents. Dana of the Sun and Pulitzer of the World fought a long feud, widely talked about, and the World and Herald frequently snarled at each other."

"I would * * * earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the tea equipage."

"They consume a considerable quantity of our paper manufacture, employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great numbers of indigent persons."

"Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador."

"The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt."

"Ask how to live? Write, write, write, anything; The world's a fine believing world, write news."

"[The opposition Press] which is in the hands of malecontents who have failed in their career."

"Hear, land o' cakes, and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's; If there's a hole in a' your coats, * I rede you tent it: A chiel's amang you taking notes, * And, faith, he'll prent it."

"The editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair, His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head, His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread."

"Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all."

"A parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the Twenty-seven millions, mostly fools."

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please."

"Only a newspaper! Quick read, quick lost, Who sums the treasure that it carries hence? Torn, trampled under feet, who counts thy cost, Star-eyed intelligence?"

"To serve thy generation, this thy fate: "Written in water," swiftly fades thy name; But he who loves his kind does, first and late, A work too great for fame."

"I believe it has been said that one copy of the Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides."

"Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love."

"How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. * * * * * Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee."

"He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks; News from all nations lumbering at his back."

"When found, make a note of."

"Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people; for it is they who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of the public."

"None of our political writers … take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords and Commons … passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in the community … the Mob."

"Caused by a dearth of scandal should the vapors Distress our fair ones—let them read the papers."

"The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman."

"The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty Reasoning on Policy, and vain Conjectures on the public Management."

"The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes."

"Tout faiseur de journaux doit tribut au Malin."

"Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown paper wrapper."

"I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets."

"The penny-papers of New York do more to govern this country than the White House at Washington."

"We live under a government of men and morning newspapers."