John Hockenberry Quotes

Journalism: A profession whose business is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

The big moment for me was making 'All the President's Men'. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?

I just don't understand why people decide to be journalists if they're not willing to investigate hard-hitting news stories.

We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.

I'm a lousy journalist.

I thought that was the crown jewel of the reporter's resume - to actually go to jail protecting a source.

I'm a journalist and that's what I do.

Journalism is not just a cause, it's also a wacky profession.

At the end of the day, there is still one function of journalism that cannot be computerized, and that is reporters. You're always going to need reporters.

But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.

I think everyone has their own style in journalism. Look, I'm a girl from the South! Sometimes I laugh. Someone can pejoratively call it giggling. But if you look at the body of my work, I ask lots of hard questions and break a lot of hard news.

Art is art, and journalism is journalism.

It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

I do think that there are gray lines of morality in a newsroom, when it comes to some stories. The best-intentioned journalist still has a difficult mission, to try to boil down people.

You know, I was at CBS News for 28 years. I may have run an unidentified source. Frankly, I don't remember.

My job is to cover the news and do it accurately and fair. And we do.

It's the broadcaster's dilemma. Are we true journalists? I don't know if I am or not.

Journalists prize independence - not teamwork.

There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair.

Most reporters are so transactional rather than strategic.

I don't think journalism changes. It's about digging into stories and telling them well. The basic tenets of great reporting stay the same while things around it change. Technology has made reporting easier, but it has also caused job loss. Social media has increased discussion around topics, but it has its own challenges at times.

Journalism is literature in a hurry.

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they're lazy and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

When I was in journalism school, you were taught to be completely objective. But we don't see that anymore.