Mike Wallace Quotes

Journalists are supposed to put the people first, even before themselves. Around the world and throughout history, journalists have died to get the truth out.

The truth is, I don't have any problem with journalists - I count some of them as friends - also some of my heroes are journalists, I'm a big fan of Robert Fisk - great people or crazy people who are prepared to stand up for what's right.

I suggest that what we want to do is not to leave to posterity a great institution, but to leave behind a great tradition of journalism ably practiced in our time.

If journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature.

With "Good Night, and Good Luck," I think it's kind of obvious what [Truman Capote]'s getting at there, and the importance of how it's playing out today, that is journalism doing, are the journalists doing their job, are they being the other checks and balances in our country that the way that obviously Edward R. Murrow was back then.

Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule. That's why my hero, admittedly a flawed one, is a journalist.

To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

The courage in journalism is sticking up for the unpopular, not the popular.

Covering Richard Nixon's triumphant run in 1968 turned out to be my last major assignment as a general correspondent for CBS News. In September of that year, '60 Minutes' made its debut and I began the best, the most fulfilling job a reporter could imagine.

It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction. So we see that controversy, and we believe that is a good thing to engage in.

I can swear on a stack of Bibles that not once in doing the 'CBS Evening News' for 19 years - well, I take it back. Once perhaps. But during 19 years, with perhaps one exception, was I ever aware of any political or commercial pressure on that broadcast whatsoever.

Press freedom has great virtues. It is not about irresponsible scandal-mongering, although that may be part of the picture. It is a means of revealing wrongdoing.

What someone doesn't want you to publish is journalism; all else is publicity.

A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good.

When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he's nobody's friend.

The newspapers, magazines and other journals of the country, it is safe to say, have shed and continue to shed, more light on the public and business affairs of, the nation than any other instrumentality of public; and since informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment, the suppression or abridgment of the publicity afforded by a free press cannot be regarded otherwise than with grave concern.

[Drew] Pearson and [Walter] Winchell are a high price to pay for freedom of the press, but I guess you've got to do it.

It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell.

Reporters love this country too and they care about national security.

What a nice mob you press fellows are--wholesale scavengers!

There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter.

Flaws and all, I believe the free press is our country's most important institution - one I am more than happy to defend. One I did, in fact, defend for 37 years.

I normally have a healthy fear of journalists.

I worked for CBS News in the aftermath of all the greatness. I actually brought coffee to Edward R. Murrow.

When I was counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee, about 25% of the important leads which our committee developed came from newspapers. This increased my respect for those courageous newspapers which assisted us. It also caused me to look with wonderment at some of the newspapers that did not.