Gavin Esler Quotes

The media's gotten lazy. They don't check anything out. You report what he reports.

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

I don't believe that there's such a thing as objectivity in much of journalism, but I think there is a serious effort to and a regard for facts and into taking that stuff seriously is very important to the public discourse and it's very important to democracy.

How do you know the news is reliable if you didn’t gather it yourself?

There is a bias in the press for facts over fiction.

I reject the idea that journalists are messengers of the truth. It’s arrogant. I think journalism is a search for the little relative truths that at best keep us relatively sane.

I don't want to paint everybody with the same broad brush. But I do think that the majority of folks now in the briefing room, that are going into journalism - they're not there for the facts and the pursuit of the truth.

We need ethical journalism. There is also capacity limitations in journalism.

My humble request to journalists - It only takes one phone call or an email to check facts.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

Journalism: A profession whose business is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

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.

WikiLeaks, for me, has not only that element in it of journalism publishing, but also the way in which it does it, with its - the concept we have of scientific journalism, I find very important and really appeals to me, that all of the source documents should be there.

We're journalists, and so it's our job to be impartial and provide a fair and thorough assessment of what's happening on the ground from the perspective of what we're able to see.

Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded.

No, there are no hard and fast rules about sources, no printed booklet to help journalists through.

The media does play a vital role in our democracy, and if we cannot depend on journalistic ethics, the nation's in trouble.

One of the most important disciplines in journalism is to challenge your working premises.

The first duty of a newspaper is to be accurate. If it be accurate, it follows that it is fair.

The most important thing about my profession is finding the truth, finding the reality of these shows.

Art is art, and journalism is journalism.

A common criticism of establishment journalists entails comparing them to stenographers, on the ground that most of them do little more than mindlessly write down and uncritically repeat what government officials say.

Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough 'facts' and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

There are so many journalists out there, I hate to say it, who are lazy and don't do their research - and it shows.