Edward R. Murrow Quotes

The radio is not show fun, it's show business. It's money.

The duty of the media is to observe truth and social responsibility.

Obviously sex and nudity sells, but that's what people go to cable for but that's not going to happen on network daytime television... so I think it really is always going to come down to story. How do you make a story interesting enough so people will tune in? That's always going to be it.

If AOL had ever ordered me to remove a piece of content from the site for any reason, I would have immediately written about it and disclosed the situation to our readers. And if I had ever ordered a writer to remove content, I would have expected that writer to have done the same to me.

We have got to make sure there is proper independent scrutiny and accountability for people in the press, just as there should be in any other industry where things go wrong. But let's not try and think it is for politicians or governments to tell people what they stick in newspapers. That is deeply illiberal.

When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.

I was for many years myself a journalist and it is not appropriate to say a programme should not be broadcast.

Very few editors worry about heresy - their goals are much too commercial, thank goodness.

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.

You know, we were worried that in the UK, there's no anarchy on kids TV. When we grew up kids TV was very anarchic and it was about stuff that your parents would probably object to, if they got to object. And it's gotten very safe.

There are values on Broadway that are dangerous: it's got to be Best Musical, it's got to make money, it's got to run a certain amount of time. Nowhere in this, of course, is there any mention of quality.

If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to our people and say what he wants, I don't care. We would question him on his choice of words.

All the faults of the age come from Christianity and journalism. Christianity, of course, but why journalism?

I went to see 'Men In Black 2.' It was just a commodity, just money being shifted.

There's not a lot of light on television.

Audiences are so much more sophisticated than they've ever been. They expect a lot more. I don't think because it's an hour of your Thursday night rather than an hour and a half of your weekend that you should be gypped at all in quality.

The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.

The decision came from the publisher. It certainly was cleared by Chicago. And then they come out with these fine sounding words about relation to readers and their obligation. It has nothing to do with that.

It is the responsibility of journalists to be ethical. Religion is a very sensitive issue, and I think no truly professional cartoonist in the world would ever try to pick on a religion like this. There’s an informal code of ethics among cartoonists in the media, and it includes two kinds of censorship: one is self-censorship; the other is professional censorship. Religion is one of the very important things that we should respect and not criticize …. We cannot tolerate any disparagement of the Prophet.

Soap operas have become sex operas.

'...all the faults of the age come from Christianity and journalism

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims. We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression, but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.

The commercial press is not a free press, and it is not a public service organization. It is business, big business, and as such is motivated by one principle - profit.

There’s not a single question about television that can’t be answered in one word: money.

While they shriek for "freedom of the press" when there is no slightest threat to that freedom, they deny to citizens that freedom from the press to which the decencies of life entitle them. They misrepresent, they distort, they color, they blackguard, they lie.