Bob Woodward Quotes

Just because you read a report in the 'New York Times,' the 'Economist,' or, yes, 'The New Yorker' doesn't make it true. But we do know that a few people have evaluated that story with what strikes me as fairly objective standards of reason.

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

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they're lazy and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

There's no worse crime in journalism these days than simply deciding something's a story because Drudge links to it.

Fact-checking doesn't exist primarily because some of us are liars and cheats. It exists because writers will be writers, much as they may mean to be historians.

Why does it appear that interested readers so often attribute flaws to 'the press' rather than taking particular issue with particular reports?

This was a report from a single source. It was an established and reliable line of reporting. It was quoted from a senior Iraqi military officer in a position to know this information.

The press these days should be rather careful about its role. We may have acquired some tendencies about over-involvement that we had better overcome.

Journalism is a flawed profession, but it has a self-correcting mechanism. The rule of journalism is: talk to everybody.

God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism.

I send you the newspapers; but they do not always speak true.

We don't print the truth. We don't pretend to print the truth. We print what people tell us. It's up to the public to decide what's the truth.

The media has not done a great job in fulfilling their role - journalism's role in a democracy is to provide information on profoundly important subjects so we're an informed citizenry.

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

I've been in journalism my entire adult life and have often defended it against fellow conservatives who claim the news business is fundamentally corrupt.

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

Simply stated, sometimes journalists can only get their information from informants who must remain anonymous in order to protect their careers and sometimes even their lives: Watergate: Confidential sources. The Pentagon Papers: Confidential sources. Enron: Confidential sources.

If a columnist writes that something happened on a certain date, or that the government spent a certain amount of money on something, or that a specific number of people have died in the war in Iraq, to pick a few examples, it is his or her responsibility to make certain that information is correct.

Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame al-Jazeera before it ascertains what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role.

When "news stories" are broken, do we not expect a certain amount of fact-checking or source-checking? One has to ask if this falls under the guise of sloppy reporting or deception as a source of spin. We seem to accept a certain amount of deception and we seem to be helpless to doing anything about it, as illustrated so clearly by where we are right now in this moment in history.

It's the bane of both the news and sports businesses, both electronic and print - 'You heard it here first!' Who cares? That's nothing but a vanity play. If it's not right, it's garbage.

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.

People say, 'Oh, you're doing the job of journalists.' I think it's very important to note that we can't do our job without journalists. Journalists can do their job without late-night comedians. They'd be just fine without us. But we, of course, use their work every day to build our pieces.

I'm a journalism junkie.

The most profound lessons about journalism I've learned have been taught to me by the people I've covered.