Hampton Sides Quotes

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

Good journalism, I think, represents life and if you try to organize something too neatly it usually blows up in your face and doesn't really happen the way you want it to.

Herodotus was more like the world’s first blogger than an objective historian. He blends events, myths, anecdotes, hearsay into a great story. But nobody in their right mind believes it’s all true.

Anybody who's spent thirteen or fourteen years in print journalism has a lot of stories he thinks were inwardly satisfying as far as preparation, understanding, and diligence.

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.

The best journalism is sometimes about footnotes—when we write small to say something big.

More and more, journalism seems to have hopped out of Truth's pocket and crept into another.

In the normal course of things, journalists want their story, and as soon as they are through with it, they pack their cameras and go. That was never the impression that David Astor gave when you were interviewed by him. It was far deeper than that.

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

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.

As a journalist, you're always worried, 'Did I get the full story?'

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

My first newspaper job was a high school reporter for the 'New York Daily News.'

I'm still hesitant to call myself a journalist. I see myself as a documentary maker who is trusted with hard-hitting current affairs issues.

I write and teach creative nonfiction. I was a reporter.

My mom cautioned me not to become a gossip! I was always up in people's business. People told me stuff... even when I didn't ask and I channeled my story gathering and good sources into a hunger for the news.

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

I'm a reporter by nature, I want to know everything.

I love journalism.

Rule number one of journalism is that trying to get in between a journalist and a story he wants to tell is like trying to stop a herd of stampeding cattle.

I love collections. I got into journalism with the idea that I'd be doing them.

Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive.

Hannity does not recognize real journalism. He opposes real journalism.

The media is done, they don't do journalism anymore, it's activism, nothing more, right?

I am a writer who happens to use some tools of journalism.