Critical Reporting Quotes

Investigative reporting is not a way to make friends.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'

I think as journalists, we have to keep our distance from power.

Critical journalism has gone out of fashion, or rather, it has been bought out. And so, we have much less of it than we did during the Vietnam era, where there was very critical reporting on the Vietnam War and a lot of disagreement among the media. Now you find that the media are much more homogenous, converging because they all must cater to the same community of advertisers. It's sad to see.

The best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.

The media is uncritical, and their so-called the concept of objectivity translates into keeping everything within the Beltway. However, Iraq was quite different. Here, there were flat-out lies, and they sort of knew it. They were desperately trying to make connections between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

It is the business of the journalist … to stand in permanent Opposition.

An ordinance that permits a mayor to say yes to a friendly [news]paper and no to a critical paper is an ordinance that has to fall.

I think the job of a good journalist, especially in Washington, is to create discomfort, and I think for a certain class of people, and for whom life is quite comfortable, I've created discomfort. So I take that as a badge of honor.

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

The job of a political correspondent is the challenge the people in power. If you are in power, I will challenge you.

There's no question that sources sometimes have interests aside from the truth when they talk to reporters. That's why reporters have to very aggressively report against their own theses and against their initial information.

It really gets tiresome to be constantly accused of spreading negativity about Barack Obama and the country. He's doing that on his own. We just chronicle it here.

The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.

Media doesn't like when other media gets their credentials pulled - that's not OK.

Media people should have long noses like an elephant to smell out politicians, mayors, prime ministers and businessmen. We need to know the reality, the good and the bad, not just the appearance.

Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world.

There is a Steve [Jobs] that Apple would like to actually present to the public. They have a character, Steve, and they want to keep that story going. And it's very important that writers challenge that occasionally and not just trust their parent companies to tell 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.

We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.

The entire American media apparatus bought into the drug war - which is an enormously damaging and costly undertaking for this country - and there wasn't enough critical reporting about it and that's why it's gotten out of hand.

American press, like the press in many countries, acts like a cheerleader to our government rather than a critical observer. This is especially true, when it comes to foreign interventions. That means that when government leaders conclude that intervention in a foreign country is justified, the press rarely criticizes it. In fact, the press has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for many of our foreign interventions.

You can criticize any news staff in some ways, but the one thing that you couldn't call the Village Voice staff was a staff of stenographers, taking notes from public figures and just passing them on.