Journalism, May It Rest in Piecemeal

“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” - Henry Anatole Grunwald

“Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.” - Walter Cronkite

“Manipulating the media is akin to poisoning a nation’s water supply – it affects all of our lives in unimaginable ways.” ― Lance Morcan

“I worry that we're not getting enough of the news that we need to make informed judgments as citizens.” - Walter Cronkite

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” - Thomas Jefferson

“The social body to which we belong is at this moment passing through one of the greatest crises of its history…. What if the nerves upon which we depend for knowledge of this social body should give us false reports of its condition?” - Upton Sinclair

“The democratic system is challenged by the failure in television because our evening news programs have gone for an attempt to entertain as much as to inform in the desperate fight for ratings.” - Walter Cronkite.

“I'm not going to name some of my colleagues who are very well-known for their television presentation, but they wouldn't know new information or how to report a story if it came up and bit them.” - Bob Woodward

“I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.” ― Helen Thomas

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.” ― Denis Diderot

"We journalists are a lot of things. We are competitive and pushy. We are impatient and sometimes we think we know everything. But we are also human, we miss our families and significant life moments in service to this job. We care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public's trust. What we are not is the opposition. What we are not is the enemy of people. What we are not is the enemy of the state." - Eugene Daniels

“Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.”          ― George Orwell

“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” ― Oscar Wilde

“There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.” - Walter Lippmann

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed. - Hannah Arendt

“The central dilemma in journalism is that you don't know what you don't know.” - Bob Woodward

“The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants.” - Samuel Johnson

“A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.” - Albert Camus

“But it is probably fair to say that the cacophony of today’s media - in which rumor and invective often outpace truth-testing, in which shouting heads drown out sober reflection, in which it is possible for people to feel fully informed without ever encountering an opinion that contradicts their prejudices - plays some role in the polarizing of our politics, the dysfunction of our political system and the increased cynicism of the American electorate.”- Bill Keller

“News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising.” - Lord Northcliff

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” - George Orwell 

“The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.” - Grace Kelly

“I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.” - Tom Stoppard

“In America, the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.” -  Oscar Wilde

“The way to write wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” - Ida B. Wells

“The most profound lessons about journalism I've learned have been taught to me by the people I've covered.” - Jodi Kantor

“Write what should not be forgotten.” - Isabel Allende

“As a writer, a failure is just information.” - Toni Morrison

“It’s great being a journalist, because our office is the world.” - Rebecca Aguilar

“Nobody’s as powerful as we make them out to be.” -Alice Walker

“The real story of any day is of what human ingenuity accomplished while a few sociopaths were distracting the media.” - Robert Brault

“When I was a young newspaper reporter, I wrote a story that included the term “very unique.” I was immediately corrected by the chief copy editor at that time, Viola Hollins, who pointed out the dictionary definition of unique: being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else. She said, “Young man, by definition, unique cannot be very. And very is vague, so avoid using it.” I humbly accepted her correction and, knowing her wry sense of humor, I replied, “I will try very hard to remember that.” - Peter DeArmond