Melvin Maddocks Quotes

Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule. That's why my hero, admittedly a flawed one, is a journalist.

To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

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.

The most important responsibility we have as journalists is to question those who are in power. I honestly believe that.

Some of our best journalists take themselves even more seriously than the politicians they write about.

Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, that's what keeps them digging rather than simply accepting the official line, whether it comes from government or corporate bureaucrats.

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

It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction. So we see that controversy, and we believe that is a good thing to engage in.

There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter.

Two opposite and instructive figures in U.S. journalism during the Trump years are Gerard Baker, editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Martin Baron, editor of the Washington Post.

Our duty as journalists is to use our clarity - and our imagination - to build hope in the societies in which we work. Our duty is to keep holding power to account, and to fight for press freedom around the world.

Journalists prize independence - not teamwork.

The media's job is to question a premise.

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

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.

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

The duty of the media is to observe truth and social responsibility.

Murrow covered something because it needed coverage. He wasn't trying to get an audience just for the sake of it.

There's some irony in playing a journalist after some of the stuff that has been written about me, but it's a great profession, particularly investigative 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.

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

Journalists are accused of being lapdogs when they don't ask the hard questions, but then accused of being rude when they do. Good thing we have tough hides.

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

The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.

The second is the damage to the credibility and independence of a free press which may be caused by covert relationships with the U.S. journalists and media organizations.