quotations about journalism
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
The Critic as Artist
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
OSCAR WILDE
"The Critic as Artist"
The basic problem is with the business model of journalism. That business model is premised on the idea that talk is cheap and reporting is expensive.
JONATHAN ALTER
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 16, 2014
Whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
attributed, The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
The only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability.
NICHOLAS TOMALIN
The Sunday Times Magazine, Oct. 26, 1969
It might be said that journalists are, really, absolute believers in relativism -- or relativistic believers in absolutism. They are both egoists and altruists, in spite of affirming a certain emphasis at any one time or in any particular situation. Journalists are not really "either-or" persons; they are all mergers -- creatures of the clash between inflexibility and flexibility and between all the other contraries that impinge on their lives.
JOHN C. MERRILL
The Dialectic in Journalism: Toward a Responsible Use of Press Freedom
Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.
REBECCA WEST
attributed, The Literary Achievement of Rebecca West
I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.
TOM STOPPARD
London Guardian, Mar. 18, 1988
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
Opportunities in Journalism Careers
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
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 MALCOLM
The Journalist and the Murderer
If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.
NORMAN MAILER
attributed, The Snark Handbook
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 CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Aphorisms
He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks; News from all nations lumbering at his back.
WILLIAM COWPER
Task
Journalism could be described as turning one’s enemies into money.
CRAIG BROWN
London Daily Telegraph, Sep. 28, 1990
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.
HUMBERT WOLFE
The Uncelestial City
I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.
SAMANTHA POWER
Salon.com interview, Feb. 18, 2008
What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Honourable Schoolboy
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
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Today’s journalism is obsessed with the kinds of things that tend to preoccupy thirteen-year-old boys: sports, sex, crime, and narcissism.
STEVEN STARK
Atlantic Monthly, Sep. 1994