Shana Alexander Quotes

A lot of college graduates approach me about becoming screenwriters. I tell them, 'Do not become a screenwriter, become a journalist,' because journalists go into worlds that are not their own. Kids who go to Hollywood write coming-of-age stories for their first scripts, about what happened to them when they were sixteen. Then they write the summer camp script. At the age of twenty-three they haven't produced anything, and that's the end of the career.

I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.

If I wasn't an actor, I'd probably be working in journalism.

The best writers who have put pen to paper have often had a journalism background.

My father was a journalist.

I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.

Chicago, with its big newspapers and major broadcasting stations, couldn't have been a better city to start a journalism career.

I knew I wanted to be a journalist ever since I was a teenager. While it is interesting and gratifying to be on the business side and to see how that all works, the main reason I kept a business role here was to protect the editorial integrity of Salon.

I wrote newspaper articles professionally for seven years, and I love newspapers.

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.

The quality of our journalism will make or break our industry, not the recession.

I'd like to get back into journalism. I'm hoping someone will offer me a job as a commentator or one of those political analysts that you see on the news shows all the time.

This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It's, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes; I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.

I started on the fringes of journalism as a cartoonist on The Daily Mail.

I was thinking of applying to the 'Guardian' for a job after university. Yeah, I wanted to be one of the people who writes stories in G2.

I remember everyone in high school thought I should be a journalist because I looked like Connie Chung.

I'm a writer. I've been a journalist for my whole adult life.

I'm a member of the media. I'm America's Anchorman.

Anybody who's spent thirteen or fourteen years in print journalism has a lot of stories he thinks were inwardly satisfying as far as preparation, understanding, and diligence.

I wanted to be a journalist so the character of a TV news person in 'Run Baby Run' was really interesting.

I always wanted to be part of the media. I knew I wanted to work as a journalist.

That's a paradox I've noticed, too: The news business held little romance for me, yet writing about it somehow stirred my affections.

A career in journalism suddenly lost its appeal.

Most people would think if you're the prime news anchor, then you should sort of be this Edward R. Murrow, Clark Kent guy with the family and 2.5 kids - or the perky, cute yet smart Katie Couric.