Gene Weingarten Quotes

But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.

Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues and whatever - that is critical, and that is also part and parcel of what the job.

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

Working as a journalist, I was always tempted to lie. I felt I could do dialogue better than the person I was interviewing. I felt I could lie better than Nixon and be more concise than some random person I was covering.

Not to be weirdly glib, but as a reporter, you should be honest all the time.

I've never fabricated or plagiarized anything.

You can't be the director of education and plagiarizing.

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

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

Tales of cheating on school and college tests are rife. There have been instances where teachers have given students test answers in order to make themselves look good on their performance reviews. Mentors who should be teaching the opposite are sending a message that lying and cheating are acceptable.

As a journalist - or as a writer - my obligation is to come as close to the truth as I possibly can. And that's not as close to someone else's truth, but the truth as I see it.

Just like there is nothing wrong with calling out unethical attorneys, there is nothing wrong with calling out unethical journalists.

We're not into all those dodgy journos who makes stories up.

I know that charges of plagiarism are serious.

I think the media's responsibility is to get to the bottom of things - to get to the truth.

Sadly, journalism doesn't always state the obvious.

When you are a journalist, you have a big responsibility towards your audience and it is important to respect that responsibility.

The primacy of preaching over reporting inevitably leads journalism down a path of hyperbole, distortion and outright fabrication.

Media bias in editorials and columns is one thing. Media fraud in reporting 'facts' in news stories is something else. ...The issue is not what various journalists or news organizations' editorial views are. The issue is the transformation of news reporting into ideological spin, along with self-serving taboos and outright fraud.

First and foremost, I'm a journalist. My business is the truth. Now, I happen to be other things, too - a pop-culture phenomenon, the most in-demand speaker on the campus lecture circuit, whatever.

What's wrong with it is, it lowers, to say the least, the credibility of the magazine. And if I were writing for [The New Republic ], I would feel diminished because the owner had done such a thing [fire a journalist].

The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

We have standards. Anybody with the kind of journalism experience and professionalism that you have displayed over these years can not work for my program.

a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)