Ian Hislop Quotes

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they're lazy and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

There have been many times when we have not run stories because we cannot get it verified.

I think as journalists, we have to keep our distance from power.

As a journalist, one tends to think there's nothing off limits.

Journalists prize independence - not teamwork.

There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair.

The media's gotten lazy. They don't check anything out. You report what he reports.

Journalism: A profession whose business is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

When I was in journalism school, you were taught to be completely objective. But we don't see that anymore.

We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.

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.

WikiLeaks, for me, has not only that element in it of journalism publishing, but also the way in which it does it, with its - the concept we have of scientific journalism, I find very important and really appeals to me, that all of the source documents should be there.

I'd like CBS, at this point, to say where they got those documents from. I think they should say where they got these documents because I thought it was a very poor job of reporting by CBS.

At CNN, our view is that good journalism equals good business.

The media does play a vital role in our democracy, and if we cannot depend on journalistic ethics, the nation's in trouble.

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.

Art is art, and journalism is journalism.

Whenever you're reporting, there's always something you can't say or write, but the questions, you always want to get as close to that line as possible. You want to ask the tough questions.

I'm in the business, as a journalist, of asking tough questions.

I'm an expert on the NewsHour and it isn't how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.

Journalism was looked upon as a more noble thing than it is now. I don't know if it carries the same cachet that it did then.

I pine for a return to the type of old-school journalism and the tough newspapermen and women of the Thirties.

A good journalist is not the one that writes what people say, but the one that writes what he is supposed to write.

Using these unnamed sources, if done properly, carefully and fairly, provides more accountability in government.