Thomas Griffith Quotes

My relationship with the journalists who covered the campaign was complicated. I often hid from the critical eye of their cameras and their omnipresent digital recorders, wary of the critique implicit in every captured moment. But I also grew to respect and understand their passion for their work, their love for the journey we were sharing.

I have a much better relationship with the press than I did, I think because I stood my ground.

I don't read my own press, so I don't know what's being reported on a daily basis - I only hear about things when they reach a sort of Def-Con status, and my publicist calls me because we have to do some damage control.

Most of the press is sent to my publicist so I do see most of what is written about me.

My New Year's resolution is to make sure I genuflect appropriately before the Chicago media on everything I do.

They put out statements to make themselves look good.

If the press doesn’t get the proper care and feeding, you don’t get the proper spin on your story.

You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun...

The White House and the media need one another in order to be successful in their jobs. The White House depends on the media to make its case to the public; the media need the White House to fill their airtime and news columns.

It's so much easier to do press if you take positions that the press likes than to take conservative Republican positions.

I enjoy the press. I understand their business.

Even the White House has a press agent.

Every press secretary faces an enormous amount of information. Events move really fast. You're responsible for a tremendous amount of information, and again, a tremendous amount on competing agendas. Not everybody grease in the White House.

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

Every administration is theater because this is the nature of public life in America.

Our job [White House press secretaries] is to serve the interest of the President while recognizing the interests of the press.

I have no more obligation to spin. When you’re in the White House, you spin.

I was asked to write a press briefing emphasizing the positive steps the administration had taken in the area and minimizing the negative ones. I was an Assistant to the President. I have done that for several Presidents. When you’re on the staff of the President of the United States you try and make things look as good as possible.

It is so important – the setting in which the President is presented to the world.

There are two things that you should never do in front of the TV cameras. You should not make love and you should not make peace.

Theodore Roosevelt owes more to newspapers than any other man of his time, or possibly of any other time.

After the usual press conference and lunch …

There is no business like show business, Irving Berlin once proclaimed, and thirty years ago he may have been right, but not anymore. Nowadays almost every business is like show business, including politics, which has become more like show business than show business is

Doing the press has become as much of a job as getting in front of the camera. You have to avoid burnout, avoid saying anything stupid, but still come across as yourself.

When you interview celebrities, they're so guarded so many times, they can't reveal anything.