Objective Reporting Quotes

The news is a public service. It's a way to inform people of what's going on in their world. And when you make it about ratings and make it about ad dollars, there's no incentive to inform people. The incentive is to be sensationalistic and get as many people to watch as you can without any regard for truth or objectivity.

Readers appreciate the truth. Why say, 'Some think a situation is a mess?' Based on my reporting, if a situation is a mess, then I say that. The truth is always what reporters tell each other when they get back to the newsroom.

I think what people are really crying out for is simple information they can trust when they're bombarded by attack ads, fundraising pitchers and all sort of comment and opinion all over the place increasingly.

I don't know if I ever believed in the infallibility of a journalist's objectivity, but I definitely stopped flirting with the notion as a young adult.

I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.

I really am convinced that what is happening in media today is the result of the birth of conservative media and its rapid growth and ascension. It has destroyed the left's monopoly in media. When they had the monopoly, they could pretend that they were not what they are and get away with it. They could pretend to be objective. You know, the power of a monopoly is not just determining what stories you are going to cover, but what you don't cover is just as powerful.

Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.

I reject the idea that journalists are messengers of the truth. It’s arrogant. I think journalism is a search for the little relative truths that at best keep us relatively sane.

The CIA should best serve the U.S. by being an unbiased reporter of the truth and if it were a fighting organization, that would affect its ability to analyze and report intelligence.

Americans deserve journalists who provide responsible, objective reporting.

When I was in journalism school, you were taught to be completely objective. But we don't see that anymore.

I was trained as journalist never to use the word 'I,' never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word 'I,' you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgement.

'Reality' is a notion that journalists take for granted.

Let us, rather, gather facts, all the facts, regardless of aesthetic appeal or theoretical social worth, and spread those facts before us not as the soothsayer spreads the innards of a turkey but as a newspaper spreads its columns. Let us be journalists, then. And like all good journalists, we shall present our facts in an order that will satisfy the famous five W's: wow, whoopee, wahoo, why-not and whew.

Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates.

Journalism is not easy. It's the first rough draft. I don't think you need to wait around until you have the definitive thing. You record what's there; don't delude yourself that this is the ultimate historical view.

I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.

And you can't really cover people critically that you're friends with.

I'm an expert on the NewsHour and it isn't how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.

I believe there are two kinds of journalists. One who sells a story by being creative, and one who sells a story by being sensationalist.

There are not two sides to a story when one side is a lie. Journalists - and the rest of us - must stop giving equal time to things that don't have an opposing side.

I don't view myself as a political leftie. I view myself as a storyteller who is fair to both sides.

In a way, I think we all want to look to that journalistic voice as a kind of global omniscience, a big eye to correct for our own limited purview: "Here's a realistic accounting of the world in which we live."

The journalist must do his work in a kind of deliberately induced state of moral anarchy.

Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.