Journalism Quotes - Page 26

• A journal should be neither an echo nor a pander.

  George William Curtis

  Echoes, Should, Journal

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• Among all the complaints you hear these days about the crimes of the media, it seems to me the critics miss the big one. It is that especially TV, but also we of the print press, tend to reduce mess and complexity and ambiguity to a simple story line that doesn't reflect reality so much as it distorts it. ... What bothers me about the journalistic tendency to reduce unmanageable reality to self-contained, movielike little dramas is not just that we falsify when we do this. It is also that we really miss the good story.

  Meg Greenfield

  Drama, Simple, Reality

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• The Press blew, the public stared, hands flew out like a million little fishes after bread.

  Enid Bagnold

  Hands, Littles, Bread

  Enid Bagnold (2013). “National Velvet”, p.302, Courier Corporation

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• Dead news like dead love has no phoenix in its ashes.

  Enid Bagnold

  Phoenix, Ashes, News

  Enid Bagnold (2013). “National Velvet”, p.301, Courier Corporation

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• In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.

  Ellen Goodman

  News, Amphetamines, World

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• On television, journalists now routinely appear on talk-shows-with-an-attitude where they are encouraged to say what they think about something they may not have finished thinking about.

  Ellen Goodman

  Attitude, Thinking, Television

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• Writing good editorials is chiefly telling the people what they think, not what you think.

  Arthur Brisbane

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• Some of the qualities that go into making a good reporter - aggressiveness, a certain sneakiness, a secretive nature, nosiness, the ability to find out that which someone wants hidden, the inability to take 'no' with any sort of grace, a taste for gossip, rudeness, a fair disdain for what people will think of you and an occasional and calculated disregard for rules - are also qualities that go into making a very antisocial human being.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Thinking, People, Gossip

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

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• Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.

  Erica Jong

  Doe, Irony, Translate

  Erica Jong (2013). “Shylock's Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice”, p.27, Open Road Media

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• Working as a journalist is exactly like being a wallflower at an orgy.

  Nora Ephron

  Journalist

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• There is no reason to confuse television news with journalism.

  Nora Ephron

  News, Television, Reason

  Nora Ephron (2012). “Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media”, p.293, Vintage

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• The more abhorrent a news item the more comforting it was to be the recipient, since the fact that it had happened elsewhere proved that it had not happened here, was not happening here, and would therefore never happen here.

  John Fowles

  Comforting, Abhorrent, News

  1974 The Ebony Tower,'Poor Koko'.

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• I often plagiarize from myself. I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.

  Molly Ivins

  Thinking, Plagiarism, Ecological

  Molly Ivins (2010). “Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?”, p.49, Vintage

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• In Czechoslovakia there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In the United States there is no such thing as freedom from the press.

  Martina Navratilova

  United States, Publicity, Freedom Of The Press

  Quoted in Lee Green, Sportswit (1984)

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• The Press nowadays is not a literary press; classic diction and brilliancy of style do not distinguish it by any means.

  Marie Corelli

  Mean, Style, Diction

  Marie Corelli (1972). “Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct”, p.304, Health Research Books

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• We do not precisely enjoy liberty at the Figaro. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you should know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids.

  George Sand

  Writing, Cutting, Liberty

  George Sand (2009). “Letters of George Sand”, p.111, Cosimo, Inc.

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• [On journalists:] We are a noisy, imperfect lot, struggling to scribble what has been called the first draft of history.

  Maureen Dowd

  Struggle, Firsts, Imperfect

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• the whole point of muck-raking, apart from all the jokes, is to try to do something about what you've been writing about. You may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty.

  Jessica Mitford

  Writing, Trying, May

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• The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Tragedy, Development, Facts

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• Being a journalist seemed the ideal way of both having a job and experiencing the world, especially for anyone with a sense of adventure.

  Jackie Kennedy

  Jobs, Adventure, World

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• [On journalists:] They are the scavengers of society who, possessing no guts of their own, tear out the guts of celebrities. They have the sycophantic, false enthusing gush of maiden aunts: who are accustomed to being trampled on doormats.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Aunt, Tears, Maidens

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• [On journalists:] They are as disruptive a menace to the public body: as grating turds in the intestines are to the private body.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Body, Turds, Menace

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• [On journalists:] ... however lyingly libellous they may be: nobody can seriously hurt the reputation of a Great person. If he is hurt: he is not Great. They can but scratch at his skin with their mice nails.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Hurt, Skins, Nails

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• the systematic abuse with which the newspapers of one side assail every candidate coming forward on the other, is the cause of many honorable men, who have a regard to their reputation, being deterred from entering public life; and of the people being thus deprived of some better servants than any they have.

  Harriet Martineau

  Men, Honorable Man, People

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.76

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• Journalism is an extraordinary and terrible privilege. Not by chance, if you are aware of it, does it consume you with a hundred feelings of inadequacy. Not by chance, when I find myself going through an event or an important encounter, does it seize me like anguish, a fear of not having enough eyes and enough ears and enough brains to look and listen and understand like a worm hidden in the wood of history.

  Oriana Fallaci

  Eye, Feelings, Brain

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