P. J. O'Rourke Quotes About Journalism

Quotes about: Journalism

• Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Joy, Faces, Journalism

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.256, Atlantic Books Ltd

• Liberals have a quaint and touching faith that truth is on their side and an even quainter faith that journalists are on the side of truth.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Touching, Sides

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.53, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• I arrived in the middle of a press conference - as boring a thing to sit through if you don't know the language as it is if you do.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Journalism, Language

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About Thi”, p.235, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• There was also a hunger strike in front of the National Press Club, which seemed an odd place to have a hunger strike (a cocktail fast, maybe). Although the Bangladeshis were savvy enough to know to know that if you're going to pester journalists, don't go to where they work: You'll never find them there.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Hunger Strike, Clubs

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.20, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• I'm a member of the working press; you'd think I'd know better than to listen to journalists.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Thinking, Journalism

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.266, Atlantic Books Ltd

• One of the reporters must have flunked journalism school because he asked a question that went straight to the point.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, School, Journalism

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.89, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• I'm here as a radio journalist but am not even sure which part of a tape recorder takes the pictures.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Tape, Radio

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.182, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• Generally it's not a good idea to wear Banana Republic - type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that's supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, War, Ideas

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.249, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• In Washington journalists can afford to live almost as well as people who work for a living.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, People, Journalism

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.36, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• The day was warm and clear. Kids were playing soccer in the parking lots and women were sunning their babies and having their tea all over the lawns. The scene was entirely too cheery for journalism.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Soccer, Baby

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.28, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• Journalists are notoriously easy to kid. All you have to do is speak to a journalist in a very serious tone of voice, and he will be certain that you are either telling the truth or a big, important lie.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Lying, Kids

• Journalists aren't supposed to praise things. It's a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Buying, Serious

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.41, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• Taxi drivers all over the world, by the way, are under Newspaper Guild contract to give easy quotes to foreign correspondents.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Giving, World

  P.J. O'Rourke (2012). “Holidays in Hell”, p.61, Atlantic Books Ltd

• If a journalist shows a facility for praise he's liable to be offered a job in public relations or advertising and the next thing you know he's got a big office, a huge salary and is living in a fine home with a lovely wife and swell kids - another career blown to hell.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Jobs, Home

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.41, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• There was an austerely dignified award ceremony. By that I mean we had to buy our own drinks - in clear violation of the international journalists'code of truth, fairness and an open bar.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Mean, Awards

  P.J. O'Rourke (2012). “Holidays in Hell”, p.92, Atlantic Books Ltd

• Imagine having journalists in your own home and not even covering the furniture with plastic sheets first.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Home, Covering

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.43, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Stories, Way

  P.J. O'Rourke (2012). “Holidays in Hell”, p.188, Atlantic Books Ltd

• I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Responsibility, Light, Objectivity

  P. J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader”, p.213, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• If I do, I say so. That's the only way out of that. If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life... it's the magic words "I don't know." I mean, there are certain basic principles, like the dignity of the individual and the individual's responsibility, and certain basic economic principles, like how when something costs less, more of it will be consumed... There are certain things that I feel pretty confident about.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Mean, Responsibility, Magic

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Just as some things are too strange for fiction, others are too true for journalism.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Fiction, Strange, Journalism

• Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated -- serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Believe, Government, Sound

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.34, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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