Bill Moyers Quotes

When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he's nobody's friend.

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

I want to see an honest press.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

I'm very much in support of the free press, but the free press ought to be educational and informative. And I believe they have fallen down recently on that.

There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.

The most important responsibility we have as journalists is to question those who are in power. I honestly believe that.

There is a long-standing tradition in the mainstream press of middle-of-the-road journalism that is objective and fair. I would hate to see that fall victim to a panic about the Fox effect.

The whole sort of debate of classic objective journalism versus a new immersion journalism - that can go on forever... I made no bones about my position: I don't think you can be objective.

The media does play a vital role in our democracy, and if we cannot depend on journalistic ethics, the nation's in trouble.

Well, thank God for a media that will ask questions.

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.

I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.

CBS fought very hard on this because it believed and believes that there's a principle at stake here. The principle is that Dan Rather doesn't work for the police, and that people that speak to Dan Rather understand that he's a journalist and not a police agent.

Newspapers that are truly independent, like The Washington Post, can still aggressively investigate anyone or anything with no holds barred.

It's always unfortunate when a reporter is sent behind bars for failing to turn over sources. There's no way to say what the long-term outcome will be.

I happen to believe that any legitimate news organization in the world would do that interview. And if the United States is going to be a proponent of a free press, it has to walk the walk.

The concept that the press is an organ of government policy dies hard.

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

By freedom of the press I mean that no influence, whether of money or power or any other thing, either directs its policy or inclines it to suppression, or advocacy, for any consideration except the common good.

The Constitution does not guarantee objectivity of the press …. The question … is not whether news shall be unprejudiced but rather whose prejudices shall color the news.

The chief danger which threatens the influence and honor of the press is the tendency of its liberty to degenerate into license.

If we shake the pillar of a free and objective press, we're harming our American national interests.

The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself