Elbert Hubbard Quotes

Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist.

I never did any training in journalism or in finance, so I really was in the deep end. I got very good at going to press conferences and nodding. I'd figure it out when I got back to the office. Charts and numbers. I've never been great with facts, ever, my whole life. For a journalist, that's not a very good trait.

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.

Journalists who are devoted to strictly factual reporting take particular pleasure from satirical news outlets that have the liberty to laugh and even mock the hypocrisy that reporters and editors must simply observe without comment.

The problem today isn't low-quality journalism, it's too much noise. If one out of five 'Business Insider' stories is original, the other four would be culled.

I'm in the business, as a journalist, of asking tough questions.

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.

Just as good books give me the joys of being alive, bad novels depress me, and as I notice this sentiment coming from the pages, I stop. I also do not hesitate to walk out of a movie house if the film is bad.

I find myself believing everything that journalists tell me.

An editor is an accomplice, looking in from the outside. That objective view is essential. We don't write in a vacuum, and we don't publish in a vacuum.

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

I think you've got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other.

That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.

I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of New York Times.

CNN is in the business of sussing out what is true and what is false.

As journalists we are sceptical by nature, but there are some things you take on trust.

It matters that we have balance and facts and push people when they need to be pushed so that we can give the accurate, fair, balanced piece to the viewer, and then it's up to the viewer to be the judge.

The best way is not to read as much from the media and what they write.

Journalists like to talk and write and produce, but the most important part of that process is learning how to listen. And that's what makes you a good journalist.

There's got to be a point in time where the reality comes home and people realize, here are the facts, and this is either not true or it is true. You've got the facts, you can make your own decision now.

There is so much unreliable information on the internet and in the media.

I think part of the reason anyone goes into journalism is to get a response to what they write.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I'm just a cold-blooded investigator.

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

I'm sick of pundits. Don't get me wrong. I love the guests I have on every day. I love their energy and smarts and sass. But I'm sick of pundits because they don't always have their ears to the ground.