Don Hewitt Quotes

Scepticism is a necessary and vital part of the journalist's toolkit. But when scepticism becomes cynicism it can close off thought and block the search for truth.

A good journalist is not the one that writes what people say, but the one that writes what he is supposed to write.

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

Journalists like to give themselves credit for being on the hunt for 'the truth.' But if we embrace this undoubtedly noble but somewhat haughty interpretation of a calling, we inevitably become susceptible to slam dunk answers.

I want to be a journalist; I want to ask tough questions.

Documentary people have to know that, particularly nowadays, they have to be on a mission. And part of the mission is to - is to be like good journalists: search for the truth, have an open mind, listen to as much as you can of different sides of things.

I have found where I am best, and that is being a fact-checker and being fearless.

In most daily journalism, you only fact-check something if it seems a little fishy.

To me, every interview, even if you love the artist, needs to be somewhat adversarial. Which doesn't mean you need to attack the person, but you do need to look at it like you're trying to get information that has not been written about before.

If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth.

In this day and age, much of journalism is about right or left, conservative or liberal, and 'The Observer' is just that: an observer. It is about truth.

In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat.

Serious journalism need not be solemn.

The first essence of journalism is to know what you want to know, the second, is to find out who will tell you.

Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough 'facts' and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.

Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, that's what keeps them digging rather than simply accepting the official line, whether it comes from government or corporate bureaucrats.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

Our job is to get as close to the verified truth as is possible.

Investigative reporting is not a way to make friends.

All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced upon them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else..

I reject the idea that journalists are messengers of the truth. It’s arrogant. I think journalism is a search for the little relative truths that at best keep us relatively sane.

Journalists are often portrayed as cynical. I often think it's the opposite.

I believe there are two kinds of journalists. One who sells a story by being creative, and one who sells a story by being sensationalist.

One of the great things about journalism, at its best I mean, is its forensic, investigative truth seeking instincts.

I'm doing real journalism.