Nicholas Kristof Quotes

I don't look for good-news stories or bad-news stories.

Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.

We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?

The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.

War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.

War is big and there are only so many reporters and only so many places for their words and images to appear. Choices are made constantly.

The old newspaper adage, 'If it bleeds, it leads,' is as true today as it was a century ago.

The good news does not make the front pages. The bad news does make the front pages.

To a newspaperman, a human being is an item with the skin wrapped around it.

I accept the media for what they are. Most of them are really good people. Some of them are scumbags.

Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.

The papers feed the public interest but then the public interest demands more in the press and speculation can look like fact.

The lead story on MSNBC was the news that there was nothing new to report in the Gary Condit story. So remember when there is nothing new to report, MSNBC will be the station not to report it first.

The coverage of Central America in recent months points up one of the ugly truths about the American press: the better the news, the less of it you get. As the war began to turn against the Communist guerillas in El Salvador, there was a palpable dip in the attention paid to it.

For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news.

The news is not gender-neutral, but it's usually reported as though it's gender-neutral.

Journalists do not write about human feelings.

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

There are times when I feel that the journalists go overboard to get a bit of juicy news, but I guess that's a part of their work.

I think politics is always about dialogue. I think journalism ranges from dialogue to monologue, and there are times when different poles are necessary.

I think in many aspects the press does amazing things and helps a lot of people.

Our line of work is very cynical, and a lot of it is driven by cynicism, cruelty, and meanness. It's easier to believe the negative stuff than the positive stuff. The feel-good stories don't usually spend a lot of time on the front pages.

I want to do journalism on journalists. I want to do the stories on stories that aren't being told.

I don't think any of the journalists in 'Broadchurch' are villainous. I think they're all trying to do their jobs under difficult circumstances.

Now everybody is questioning everything, so it's up to journalists who really care about the truth to fight for their corner of the truth and journalistic freedom.