Sam Harris Quotes

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.

When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject.

The ethics of journalism are one thing. Another thing is the ethics of business.

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

You know, I was at CBS News for 28 years. I may have run an unidentified source. Frankly, I don't remember.

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

The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true.

When I was in journalism school, you were taught to be completely objective. But we don't see that anymore.

We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.

I would like to know that when I read the paper in the morning, it's telling me something that actually happened, and I think the vast majority of journalists want the same thing.

Things said to a reporter in confidence should be kept in confidence.

I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies.

Is journalism a profession that serves the public by maintaining high standards, or is it a social construct that should be redesigned to directly serve certain social goods? Some argue that all journalism involves bias, either hidden or revealed. But it is one thing to say that objectivity and fairness are ultimately unreachable. It is another to cease grasping for them. That would be a world of purely private truths, in which the boldest liars and demagogues would thrive.

What I say is that there are not half a dozen papers in the United States which tamper with the news, which publish what they know to be false. But if I thought I had done no better than that, I would be ashamed to own a paper. You have to make everyone connected with the paper believe that accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman.

One of the differences between what happens when an author and a gossip columnist sit down to write a book is that the former tends to make every effort at disguising and protecting their sources, while the latter doesn't particularly care.

...the indispensable requirement for a good newspaperman - as eager to tell a lie as the truth.

Journalists aren't supposed to be cheerleaders.

Where are reliable journalism and reliable investigative voices going to come from? I love the days of old - the Walter Cronkites, the Dan Rathers.

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

I don't trust a lot of journalists.

There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

I thought that was the crown jewel of the reporter's resume - to actually go to jail protecting a source.

I try very hard to maintain the confidence of my sources by speaking candidly with them, honoring agreements about the use of our conversation, and practicing journalism in an honest and straightforward way.

And I really believe good journalism is good business.