Oscar Wilde Quotes

I got a letter one day from somebody saying, 'You're always criticizing the press. Why don't you talk about what Clay Felker is doing to your own paper [The Voice]?' And my 10-year-old son Tom, now with Williams & Connelly, put in a legal opinion, not - an opinion from the back of the car saying, 'You know why? What are you, afraid?' So I wrote the column. I - you know, - the column simply said that Felker is destroying this paper.

People think I've got a problem with the press. Actually I have no problem with the press, but just like in football there are a handful who cause problems because they're disrespectful, they're lazy, and above all - and this is what really gets to me - they haven't worked hard to get there.

Given what the media have put the country through this past decade, it must come as a surprise to most Americans that the press has a code of ethics.

In Hollywood, you can't say anything bad about anybody or everyone is going to attack you. It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that; I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like.

I'd love to sit down with Barbara Walters. She's always asking people about their personal lives. I'd like to see how she likes it.

Most good newspapers don't set out to offend readers. But newspapers shouldn’t avoid controversy, and if they don’t occasionally a offend readers, they’re probably not doing their job.

Even if you had the wherewithal to embarrass a reporter, there was no mechanism to do it. And in most cases, you might as well save your breath because the reporter had no shame anyway.

ESPN wants to scrutinize everyone, but if they're scrutinized, they run and hide.

If anybody ever tries to do an investigative report on a journalist, much like the kind and the way a journalist would do on a public figure, have you ever seen a stuck pig? Because that's what the journalist looks like.

The media are very dishonest. In fact, in covering my comments, the dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people - the fake news. They dropped off the word "fake." And all of the sudden, the story became, the media is the enemy. They take the word "fake" out, and now I'm saying, oh, no, this is no good. But that's the way they are. So I'm not against the media. I'm not against the press. I don't mind bad stories if I deserve them. And I tell you, I love good stories, but we won't - I don't get too many of them.

I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.

It is completely irresponsible, if not worse, for members of the media to be calling our press secretary a liar and worse. On Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere. And in articles. That is not the way to start relationships with the press.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse, 10 times as ignorant, 10 times as unfair and tyrannical, 10 times as complaisant and pusillanimous, and 10 times as devious, hypocritical, disingenuous, deceitful, pharisaical, Pecksniffian, fraudulent, slippery, unscrupulous, perfidious, lewd and dishonest.

In the founding days of the Constitution, the purpose of the media was to make sure that powerful government officials were held accountable. It really was. I mean, it was founders who hated the media like everybody else hates the media, but they understood the role they played. This media long ago when it comes to Hillary Clinton/Bill Clinton and the Democrat Party? No, no, no, no. They're the Democrat Party now. There is no media.

The media is the only business in the world where the customer is always wrong. If you're a news consumer, if you're a customer, and you complain to them, they will tell you that you are not sophisticated enough to understand what they do, and they're tell you to go listen or watch somewhere else. They're not even really doing the news for you. They're doing news for other journalists and other people in government because that's their real audience.

When I started writing this blog more than years ago, it was in response to traditional media's habit of twisting interviews to fit the headlines they wanted to create.

My problem is that people have been writing books about me.A lot of things that people write about you are incorrect, but you don't fight about it.

The U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "free press," is that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests.

Hollywood is full of guys who say one thing, and then do another.

The Factor concept is very simple: Watch all of those in power, including and especially the media, so they don't injure or exploit the folks, everyday Americans. Never before in the United States had a television news guy dared to criticize other journalists on a regular basis. The late Peter Jennings, a friend, told me I was crazy to do it. "These people will not allow anyone to scrutinize them," he said. "They will come after you with a vengeance." And so they have.

I think that the media should stop with this unnamed source stuff, put names on a piece of paper and print it. If people aren't willing to put their name next to a quote, then the quote shouldn't be listed, period.

The idea that a reporter has to be 'fair and balanced' is ridiculous. The fact is, the truth usually is not fair and it's not balanced. Truth stands by itself. And the idea that something called fair and balanced is a substitute for truth and fact is mindless nonsense that has captured much of the national media.

In the Rather/Bush incident, it was totally unfair. CBS was trying him and convicting him and trying to execute him on national television. They had made up their minds. CBS made the fatal error of trying to become the political opposition to George Bush. And, when they did that, they put themselves in an arena where they can get knocked on their fanny.

The media, folks, is no good. They're no good - very dishonest.

Remember,the press is a business: Newspapers and magazines are in business to make money - sometimes at the expense of accuracy, fairness and even the truth.