Jonathan Demme Quotes

There is so much going on in our country and in the world today... We're getting the headlines for a second, shaped by corporate delivery most of the time, but what's really the story there? Well, I'm turned on by that kind of stuff.

One thing that happens on the 'Newsroom' is that every time a real story does get incorporated into the show, there's always an angle that's provided that hasn't really been dealt with yet.

Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program, it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least.

The press tends to reflect what's important to the country.

Frankly, many Fox shows are running away from the news rather than reporting on it.

The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.

A lot of television stuff is mean-spirited, and I think that's how political advertising got so mean-spirited, to where people are throwing things at the television set every time we have an election.

Maybe it is because of Facebook or something else, but I have been interested in journalism for a long time.

Yeah, I don't deal with current events or pop culture, and I avoid politics like the plague.

I can't think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there's been a reaction, there's been no journalism. It's cause and effect.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

It’s a lot easier and cheaper to have thumbsuckers and pundits on television than it is to have reporters and news bureaus around the world.

Some filmmakers are more eclectic than others. I'm not one of those! I'm interested in what I'm interested in, which is films about the world, about what's going on. I started in TV documentaries with 'World in Action,' and those interests feed into the films I make now.

Every time I watch CNN, it feels like you're assigning me homework. Is Trump a Russian spy? I don't know. You tell me - I'm watching the news. It feels like I'm watching CNN watch the news. Just take an hour, figure out what you want to say, then go on the air.

Part of my job is to read the paper, watch C-Span and show things that haven't been shown or were buried.

The most important newspapers in this country need to exist. Our democracy needs them. Life as we know it would be unthinkable without them.

I've often wondered what it would have been like if we'd had cable news during the Vietnam War and Watergate.

I noticed that mainstream western TV channels, especially CNN and ABC, show the same thing.

The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth. If only it were true, we might have a more humane, open-minded, and ultimately effective public debate on the issues facing the country.

That's why we began calling it the daily soap opera, or it's just the place on radio and TV where Democrat Party agenda is advanced. But it isn't media.

The Washington establishment and the financial and media corporations that fund it...Their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton.

Very rarely are you going to see the large shareholder or CEO of a corporation march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this story, don't cover that." It's a much more subtle process. The professional code adapts, but what we try to see, is how commercial and corporate pressure shape both the professional code and the sorts of things that are considered legitimate journalism and illegitimate journalism.

I tell people: if it's in the news, don't worry about it, because by definition, news is something that almost never happens.

Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloidy network.

I don't understand why it's the fault of the media for focusing on an issue that Mike Pence are crediting Donald Trump for bringing to the fore.