Robert Hilburn Quotes

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

You are almost not free, if you are teaching a group of graduate students, to become friends with one of them. I don't mean anything erotically charged, just a friendship.

Editors and their authors seldom form deep friendships for the same reason that psychiatrists and their patients keep their distance: The relationship requires candor that mixes poorly with intimacy.

It's not a good thing to be friends with people you're covering. There's just no point in doing it. It's tempting, but they're not going to consider you their friend anyway. They just know that you're somebody that can do something for them.

Separating your profession from friendship is very difficult.

Reviewing a book written by someone you're living with and sleeping with is, needless to say, wrong.

The ethics of journalism are one thing. Another thing is the ethics of business.

As any journalist will tell you, there are few professional situations as vexing as when a friend becomes involved in a major story that you feel you must cover.

I violated, apparently, an unspoken rule that we are supposed to take care of our own. Frankly, if that invites discomfort, I welcome it. I don't think there's enough discomfort in journalism, especially in Washington.

The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.

The public impression is that the government, industry or the highest bidder can buy a scientist to add credibility to any message. That crucial quality of impartiality is being lost.

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.

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

I don't like to watch myself. I can't get into the story; I'm too critical.

Journalists are accused of being lapdogs when they don't ask the hard questions, but then accused of being rude when they do. Good thing we have tough hides.

It is unsound for an independent editor to be a financial contributor to any cause which would cause any type of special pleading.

I never read reviews of something I want to see.

We journalists are never so idiotic as when we analyze things that we shouldn't be analyzing.

The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw in character.

I don’t care if you fuck the elephants, but if you do, you can’t cover the circus.

I think that readers believe that a writer becomes friends with the people he interviews and writes about - and I think there are some writers who do that - but that hasn't happened to me. I do think it's dangerous because then you write the article to please them, which is a terrible error.

I don't read the reviews because it somewhere affects my work. If some critic doesn't like a movie, I can't keep his criticisms in mind the next time I am making a film. Even if someone writes a great review about my film, I don't want to be affected by it.

When I'm writing, I try to think about what would make a song better before worrying about personal opinions.

I'm not changing any of my opinions or what I'm saying about a product in a video based on my relationship with the company… When they release a product, my job is to be honest and deliver what people want to see and what people need to hear.

Money is very important to me, but its source is important too. As of now, I can say that I will never ever do films that demands me to sell my craft.