Jon Krakauer Quotes

There are some programs on FOX that are not only fair and balanced, they're commentary shows. They don't have to be. But they brag about how fair and balanced they are. They don't cover rallies and tea parties. They cheer lead for rallies and tea parties. And as a journalist, I am totally against that.

How can an article about me or the Batman be the true story when I am not consulted or interviewed?

With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

I think it's a problem when journalists have the title of their article before they do the interview, because it biases the way they conduct it.

I don't want to paint everybody with the same broad brush. But I do think that the majority of folks now in the briefing room, that are going into journalism - they're not there for the facts and the pursuit of the truth.

Stop pretending journalists are anything other than the Hillary PR team.

What you realize hanging out with investigative reporters is that, while they may be personally liberal, they don't let that get in the way of a good story.

The first word I would remove from the folklore of journalism is the word objective.

Journalists aren't supposed to be cheerleaders.

I don't know of anybody's political bias at CBS News. We try very hard to get any opinion that we have out of our stories, and most of our stories are balanced.

Murrow covered something because it needed coverage. He wasn't trying to get an audience just for the sake of it.

If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce.

I don't know that I 'look up' to them, but in our predictably partisan media world, I admire journalists who are genuinely nonpartisan and totally fearless in their work - people who have no interest in being invited to the cocktail party. I don't agree with everything he writes, but Glenn Greenwald comes to mind.

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.

I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism.

Journalists hold themselves apart, and above, the common person. They have rules designed to ensure their objectivity and impartiality.

I'd never compromise my position as a journalist by having a friendly relationship with a politician.

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.

Many reporters, when they go to work in the nation’s capital, begin thinking of themselves as participants in the political process instead of glorified stenographers.

The more servile a reporter is toward his sources, the more authoritative he can appear in print.

Some people will say that words like ‘scum’ and ‘rotten’ are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

A journalists's job is not to be balanced. It is to be accurate.

I want to stress the importance of being fair to our readers. You should not impose your own view and prejudice on the readers and try to lead them to a conclusion. As a reader, I understand what a fair report is.

The media these days are not so much interested in saying things truthfully without distortion, without misrepresentation, without ridicule.