Smriti Irani Quotes

The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media.

People say I manipulate the media. Well, duh. We live in a media culture, so why on earth wouldn't I?

Here's a certainty: When you play out your personal dramas, hurt and self-interest in the media, it's a confection. You say what you have to say in the way you have to say it to give it media currency - and that's always far from the truth. Often, in fact, someone else says it for you. It's all planned. It's all rehearsed.

Politicians have always been required to be fake, but now the career havoc wrought by a stray, flying sound bite means they have to sustain their fakeness all the time.

We studied Western journalists' reporting methods, fed them story ideas, steered them toward sympathetic interviewees, and supplied them with the revolutionary movement's facts and figures.

Politics is the business of managing perceptions.

Every successful president has suffered imputations that he has in sinister fashion charmed the press or used a new medium of communication (radio, television, the Internet) to claim an undeserved standing.

I only talk to the press if it's to my advantage.

People are more sophisticated in the way they go about dealing with the press.

Politics as battle has given way to politics as spectacle.

There is a curious relationship between a candidate and the reporters who cover him. It can be affected by small things like a competent press staff, enough seats, sandwiches and briefings and the ability to understand deadlines.

All governments in all wars have used all the means at their disposal to put their own motives, decisions and actions, and the actions of their military forces, in the best possible light.

I'm envious of people that can handle the press. No matter what I say or how articulately I say it, it always comes back to the same issues. And it's getting kind of old.

General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command.

It's not just politicians. Any spokesman for a vested interest is well schooled in how to say what it is they wish to say, which may bear no relation at all to what you've asked them.

I was never one to run away from trouble - I intend to continue to fight my corner and try to redeem our reputation in some way. It's very difficult when you see the PR campaign that Anglo have built up against us. A lot of the media would be very anti-Quinn and have fallen hook, line and sinker for the Anglo story where they are the good guys.

In public relations, you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph.

Negative publicity makes people forget your best times.

I know certain techniques, such as a press release that looks like a newscast. So you use it because you want your man to win.

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman and resident fantasist …

Every politician higher up than assistant water commissioner knows how to avoid tough questions [from reporters]: Don't answer them.

Everyone in politics turns to the press, if only to manipulate it or deflect it.

The First Law of Politics: Never say anything in a national campaign that anyone might remember.

Politicians generally don’t volunteer for press encounters they can’t control.

We’re going to sell Jack like soap flakes. There are no accidents in politics.