Watchdog Role Quotes

A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up.

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

We are considered to be a watchdog, the IEA, and a watchdog fulfils its task only if it barks. So I bark when I think there is a need for barking.

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

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.

Who will guard the guards ? If we're the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we're not dangerous?

The press is supposed to serve as a check on government.

Let me go back to a fundamental thing we all used to agree on: information is power. That's why we became journalists in the first place.

Journalism is kind of scary and of it we should be wary.

Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance.

Journalism has a check-and-balance effect to those in power, and those in power submitted themselves to it.

My job is to be skeptical: skeptical of people like Edward Snowden and skeptical of the U.S. government.

What I do know is that writing is the thing I am best at, and I don't have the stomach, the ability, the strength or the courage to enter the political arena. And I think writing can be a political act, if only to let those people accountable know they are being watched. Literature can be a conscience.

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.

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that.

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.

The media is supposed to be custodians of the facts and watchdogs of government. They have, for the most part, neglected to be either of those things.

We are in a situation with the huge stimulus package that's going to be spent all across this nation and a big financial crisis and banking crisis. And what we need is good, trained journalists who can play the role of watchdog.

There is no weapon stronger than the press.

Journalism, some huge percentage of it, should be devoted to putting pressure on power, on nonsense, on chicanery of all kinds and if that's going to invite a lawsuit, well, bring it on.

Congress is supposed to provide oversight, the voters are supposed to provide oversight. And you [the media] were supposed to provide oversight. That's why you have special liberties and that's why you have special protections.

While I'm critical to the Bush presidency, it's been enormously beneficial for Salon because we're seen as kind of an aggressive watchdog on the Bush White House. Particularly since Florida, our readership hit a whole new level, and we held onto those readers.

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.

If the watchdog doesn't bark, how do you know there's a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog.

Congress has the constitutional authority to investigate the other agencies of government. We are the watchdogs of the taxpayer's money, and we have the right to know how that money is being spent and to conduct oversight over the government.