Journalism - Quotes

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. - Janet Malcom

If you consider the great journalists in history, you don't see too many objective journalists on that list. - Hunter S. Thompson

In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right. - Ellen Goodman

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. - Henry Anatole Grunwald

Journalism could be described as turning one’s enemies into money. - Craig Brown

Journalism is a career which demands the highest professionalism. It demands responsibility as well, for the line between honest revelation and disingenuous sensationalism is sometimes perilously thin. - Margaret Thatcher

Journalism is literature in a hurry. - Matthew Arnold

Journalism is unlike any other craft. It most closely resembles show business. There's an undeniable element of ego in journalism, and an equally undeniable element of self-sacrifice. Performers know the show must go on. Journalists know the paper has to come out on time. - Donald L. Ferguson

Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one. You are trained to get rid of anything nonessential. You go in, you start writing your article, assuming a person’s going to stop reading the minute you give them a reason. So, the trick is: don’t give them one. - Amy Hempel

Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It’s absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others. She cannot do her work without judging what she sees. - Marguerite Duras

Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space. - Rebecca West

My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action – even an opinion is a kind of action. - Graham Greene

The only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability. - Nicholas Tomalin

The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master. - James Fenimore Cooper

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands. - Oscar Wilde

There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. - Oscar Wilde

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

We journalists are seducers, except it's not sex we're after (usually). It's sound bites and quotes and information. - Eric Weiner