Roger Ebert Quotes

If you're going to be in the business of news and telling people the truth... you've got to be honest. You've got to have the same rules for yourself as you do for everyone else.

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

It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects.

I learned a long time ago that not becoming friendly with the people you write about is a way to maintain your freedom to say whatever you damn well please.

I want to have a media platform that is an honest broker and not just a mouthpiece for a political party.

I'm not beholden to one party or any special interests.

I think the way to be an influential journalist is to be accurate and to be fair and to get things right and to really characterize things in an honest way, versus being really snarky or cheerleading.

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.

None of the editors I've worked with have ever asked me to pull my punches. They've never asked me to give them anything other than my own interpretation of events.

I don't read reviews, because if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad.

The point I'm trying to make is, I'm really quite neutral. I have not been conditioned.

The journalistic code of ethics governing the broadcasts requires that opposing views be presented, and that journalists' personal opinions or judgments be left out of factual reporting.

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.

I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act.

I firmly believe that any good journalist must essentially be temperamentally an outsider. I don't think full sense of belonging and security is conducive to creativity.

I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it.

As long as the appointment process is transparent and there is a broad mix of political views among the governors of the BBC, I think the public can feel confident that impartiality and independence are just as important to me as they have been to previous incumbents.

It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

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.

There's a reason that students don't grade their own papers. There's a reason defendants don't sentence themselves. And there's the reason the State Department doesn't get to investigate itself, determine whether or not it made errors in Benghazi. That is Congress's job.

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

The BBC should not have a cheerleader. It should have somebody who runs the organisation in the interests of the public and that should be a chairman.

Thus, the Archivist must display at all times scrupulous independence and a devotion to the laws and principles which govern the responsibilities of the office.

I'm literally an independent. Apolitical. So that I am not always going to be with the Left's perceived interests or the Right's perceived interests.