Journalism Quotes - Page 5

• The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.

  David Brinkley

  Sarcastic, Business, Sarcasm

  "One Man's America". Book by George F. Will, Chapter 15, Lingerie and Duct Tape (p. 118), 2008.

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• Of all the people expressing their mental vacuity, none has a better excuse for an empty head than the newspaperman: If he pauses to restock his brain, he invites onrushing deadlines to trample him flat. Broadcasting the contents of empty minds is what most of us do most of the time, and nobody more relentlessly than I.

  Russell Baker

  Empty Mind, People, Brain

  Russell Baker (1991). “There's a Country in My Cellar”, Avon Books

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• ... It was the idea of facing a future skimming the surface of life, winging my way in and out of other people's crises, confusions, and passages, engaging them enough to get the story, but never enough to be indelibly touched by what I had seen or heard.

  Anna Quindlen

  Ideas, People, Confusion

  Anna Quindlen (2003). “Object Lessons: One True Thing ; Black and Blue”

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• ... Don [Hewitt, 60 Minutes exec producer] told me, "You have set broadcast journalism back 20 years." Naturally, I was both proud and elated although too modest to say so, but broadcast journalism recovered with alacrity, my contract wasn't renewed, and the incident was forgotten.

  Nicholas von Hoffman

  Years, Proud, Forgotten

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• 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.

  William Cowper

  Eden, Evil, Tree

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• Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Business, Humor

  "The style guide editor on ... peer pressure and using people's proper names" by David Marsh, www.theguardian.com. December 8, 2013.

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• It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

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• Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.

  William O. Douglas

  Acceptance, Maturity, Government

  William O. Douglas (1954). “An Almanac of Liberty”

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• The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America (is that it) has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Roots, America, Political

  Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

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• A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

  Walter Lippmann

  Air, Space, Long

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Thinking, Together, Clubs

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.143, Library of America

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• The media know exactly what they're doing, focusing our attention on Arsenio's hairdo. We need to keep our brains brimming with rubbish. If we didn't, we might think about things.

  Cynthia Heimel

  Funny, Thinking, Media

  Cynthia Heimel (2002). “If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?!”, p.11, Grove Press

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• You've only got to be in public life for about a week before you start to question if the newspapers are even giving you today's date with any accuracy!

  Jonathan Lynn

  Funny, Giving, Today

  Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay (1988). “The complete Yes, Minister: the diaries of a cabinet minister”, HarperCollins

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• My own view, there is a need for and a demonstrated need for more journalism now than there ever has been.

  Jim Lehrer

  Views, Needs, Literature

  "Jim Lehrer on Billy Bob, Reports of Rain and Stenography As Journalism". Interview with Liz Cox Barrett, www.cjr.org. June 2, 2006.

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• The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Long, Portraits, Littles

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook D 20, 1799.

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• 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.

  Joseph Addison

  Running, Ambition, Mean

  Joseph Addison (1811). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.400

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• A journalist is basically a chronicler, not an interpreter of events. Where else in society do you have the license to eavesdrop on so many different conversations as you have in journalism? Where else can you delve into the life of our times?

  Bill Moyers

  Events, Different, Conversation

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• In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.

  Anthony Sampson

  America, Newspapers, Conversation

  1965 TheAnatomy of BritainToday, ch.9.

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• Newspapers have developed what might be called a vested interest in catastrophe. If they can spot a fight, they play up that fight. If they can uncover a tragedy, they will headline that tragedy.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Fighting, Play, Tragedy

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• I've heard it said that the first law of journalism is to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Law, Prejudice, Firsts

  Linda Ellerbee (1987). “"And so it goes": adventures in television”, Berkley Pub Group

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• You should never pick up a newspaper when you're feeling good, because every newspaper has a special department, called the Bummer Desk, which is responsible for digging up depressing front-page stories.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Depressing, Feel Good

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up”, p.21, Ballantine Books

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• Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.

  Ben Hecht

  Time, Business, Reading

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

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• 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.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Important, Three, Gallery

  On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic "The Hero as Man of Letters" (1841).

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• Italian journalism is free because it serves one cause and one purpose... mine!

  Benito Mussolini

  Italian, Purpose, Causes

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• Lookit, I've done it their way this far and now it's my turn. I'm my own handler. Any questions? Ask me ... There's not going to be any more handler stories because I'm the handler ... I'm Doctor Spin.

  Dan Quayle

  Doctors, Stories, Done

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