Nick Davies Quotes

Newspapers are what matter in this country, not magazines.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

The worst part of my life is newspapers are still alive - sorry, I had to say it.

How united would the United States be without its newspapers?

I'm a journalism junkie.

It'd be nice to claim that the American press, while maintaining objectivity and balancing against bias, is still inherently American - that they are patriots who love this country even as they report on its defects.

The most important newspapers in this country need to exist. Our democracy needs them. Life as we know it would be unthinkable without them.

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.

In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.

I think it's a good thing that there are bloggers out there watching very closely and holding people accountable. Everyone in the news should be able to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. I'm for as much transparency in the newsgathering process as possible.

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.

'The New York Times' is inherent in what we are, but not worn as 'what we are'; it's important and crucial to all of us, but not something that was drilled in, in any specific ways.

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.

Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.

A newspaper is the lowest thing there is.

Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

The United States is paradise compared to China, Russia, Ecuador and Cuba, with regard to the press. And with regard to secrecy and transparency.

I think the future of journalism is going to be a battle between caution and recklessness. And I think a little bit of recklessness is a good thing, as some of the WikiLeaks cables proved.

Wikileaks in its essence is a publisher, pure and simple. They were very much in the same position as 'The New York Times' and 'The Guardian.'

Whistle-blowing and publishing should not be seen as a crime, and certainly not as terrorism.

Whether it's long-form journalism or investigative journalism, it's no fun to just be the guy diagnosing the problem.

The quality of life in America is dependent on the quality of the journalism. Most people don't realize that, but if you think about it, journalism is one of the pillars on which our society is perched.

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.

One of the most important roles of our journalists is to be watchdogs.

I read the papers like everybody else, so I don't complain about what they print.