Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

News is the backbone of our network; the main commodity and the main successes of Al Jazeera came out of our involvement in covering the news in the Middle East.

Then there is the newspaper press, that huge engine for making the political test final.

Journalists follow authority as sharks follow a liner, dining on the scraps that are thrown overboard.

Journalist, in my opinion, are mediators between the Information Age and our democracy.

It’s a lot easier and cheaper to have thumbsuckers and pundits on television than it is to have reporters and news bureaus around the world.

There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe. I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially … a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive.

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.

We try and slow down the news.

I am interested in the press and what they do.

In the New York Times, you're going to get completely different information than you would in the USA Today.

My mother was married to one of the greatest newsmen of all times. CNN was built out of his idealism and his recognition that, in a global age, we needed greater understanding of the world around us.

When you speak of the press, of course, you have to speak of different segments of the press. Reporters, straight reporters, wire services, you stick to the facts; you don't create the story, per se. You cover what is happening.

I am, and remain, passionate about news.

The whole idea of television news or any kind of news is to inform people about things they need to know about.

I know that doesn't sound very radical and webby of me to say that but I think the New York Times is important. I also think there's an occasional piece that will pop out.

In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.

The front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are very important in shaping what other people think. They're like writing a memo to the White House.

The good news does not make the front pages. The bad news does make the front pages.

We in the media should be breaking the news and not making the news.

In a bad year in this country, we have 600 people die in airplane crashes. We have 150 die a day in automobiles. Automobile accidents are simply not news. People are not reacting to them, unless you have a phenomenal accident where five or ten people are killed at once, and that will get to be big news. But you've got to concentrate it to produce the news. On the other hand, airplanes, a little bit like nuclear power, have an awesome safety record. And yet, a plane crash where 100 people are killed is news, not just locally but all over the world, quite literally. So the concentration of deaths is very important.

The press are the chroniclers of history as it is made.

How do you know the news is reliable if you didn’t gather it yourself?

Newspapers always excite curiosity.

Journalism is now not only reflecting what is happening, it is affecting what is happening. Governments all over the world watch CNN.

When there is a conflict between a [network] corporation and the needs of it’s news division, the corporate interest will win out.