Rebekah Brooks Quotes

You can’t report on something that you don’t know about.

In most daily journalism, you only fact-check something if it seems a little fishy.

My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.

We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody.

I have great admiration for the fact-checking team. Considering it takes me years to gather all the facts in my books, it's a daunting task for the fact-checkers to review all of that material in a matter of weeks.

I think that any time you are making a film you have to realize that the people you are talking with might be giving you misinformation. Sometimes it is factually incorrect and for that, it's important to me to check it out and not let things find their way into the film without being challenged, either by me, or by another character, or by evidence that you might see on screen.

In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat.

As I understand it, Lacey has dismissed all of the fact checkers.

My work is very carefully researched. Sometimes I have to ditch an idea because I can't prove it.

Documentary film without nuanced journalistic sourcing risks being sensational, tendentious or broad-brushed.

I was taught that newspapers were supposed to find out if rumors were true, and if not, not print them.

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

Careful authors and journalists cultivate relationships with a wide variety of sources so as to avoid bad information or being led down an inaccurate path. Gossip columnists don't particularly care if the path is inaccurate, so long as it gets attention and results in more fuel for the fire.

I have found where I am best, and that is being a fact-checker and being fearless.

But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story.

I believe in research you cannot do enough research; believability comes out of what's real.

My job is to get to the heart of a story, to find out what's really going on; to get it verified and, then, to get it out to as many people as possible as fast as.

I will never repeat something verbatim on the air unless I know it's accurate. And when you go to the source, sometimes there's a better story beyond the original story. That happens all the time.

When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.

Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist.

While the web is very much the first draft of history, a rough-cut, it still has to be good journalism, well-sourced, reliable. Clearly, the printed form is going to have more effort put into it, going to be more reflective and relevant.

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

As a print journalist, if you hear a rumour you try to stand it up and if you can't, the story dies. With a blog you can throw the rumour out there and ask for help. You can say: 'We don't know if this is true or not.'

Many a good newspaper story has been ruined by over verification.

I mean, journalism is very detailed... you try to get down in the weeds and sort out exactly what happened. And I don't think that a feature film is really a place where that happens.