Mark McKinnon Quotes

I'm not a critic, I'm a journalist. I'm doing my job holding the government to account.

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.

In essence, I see the value of journalism as resting in a twofold mission: informing the public of accurate and vital information, and its unique ability to provide a truly adversarial check on those in power.

I respect the press. The press and the media are a very useful watchdog to check the power of the government.

This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that.

The function of journalism is, primarily, to uncover vital new information in the public interest and to put that information in a context so that we can use it to improve the human condition.

Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule. That's why my hero, admittedly a flawed one, is a journalist.

An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts.

In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.

With the press there is no 'off the record.'

Using these unnamed sources, if done properly, carefully and fairly, provides more accountability in government.

… no court was going to penalize a newspaper criminally for showing how the government had lied, particularly when the government’s own papers proved it.

Some of the best stories that I've gotten, that others have written about this administration, about the previous administration, you have to rely on anonymous sources.

Murrow covered something because it needed coverage. He wasn't trying to get an audience just for the sake of it.

Freedom of the press is not questioned when investigative journalism unearths scandals, But that does not mean that every classified state document should be made available to journalists.

Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, that's what keeps them digging rather than simply accepting the official line, whether it comes from government or corporate bureaucrats.

It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction. So we see that controversy, and we believe that is a good thing to engage in.

Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.

I like BuzzFeed, and I understand the pressure that online reporters are under. But I think everyone agrees that, despite all the awesome kitten gifs, they're still obligated to be skeptical of government officials and ask the right questions.

Being a reporter is at the very core of a democracy, being a free person in a free society.

It’s hard to sometimes get information out of the government. It’s really hard. You can’t do it without asking tough questions.

The first duty of the Press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation.

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks.

I will not have New York Times muck-racking the President of the United States.