Barbara Demick Quotes

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

Certainly in my own body of reporting, I was very acutely aware of the risk of any mischaracterized journalism and the need for anything I put out to be absolutely bulletproof.

Journalists who swallow the subject's account whole and publish it are not journalists but publicists.

Readers appreciate the truth. Why say, 'Some think a situation is a mess?' Based on my reporting, if a situation is a mess, then I say that. The truth is always what reporters tell each other when they get back to the newsroom.

I will never repeat something verbatim on the air unless I know it's accurate. And when you go to the source, sometimes there's a better story beyond the original story. That happens all the time.

The responsibility that I feel is to do as good a job as a journalist as I can possibly do.

A good newspaper is never nearly good enough but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.

I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

Clearly, you can't believe everything you read in the press.

I think it's a lack of journalistic integrity to print things with anonymous sources.

Just because someone says something, whether it's at the podium during the briefing or the president tweets, I can't always assume that's factual. That's insane. We have to be very quick on our toes in fact checking.

If you are a journalist, check and double-check your sources. Don't just swallow what politicians tell you.

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

A good journalist is modest; his only job is simple: to decide what counts as news.

Seek truth from facts.

I would never have been a good reporter because I am not accurate regarding facts.

I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world you're in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree.

If you are a reliable, honest journalist, sources will open up and trust you and share good information.

If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce.

I have a rule in research: The third time you hear something, it's generally true.

My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.

When we are reporting the news, we make every effort to report it in as factual way as possible.

At CNN, our view is that good journalism equals good business.

But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.