H. L. Mencken Quotes

A journalists's job is not to be balanced. It is to be accurate.

Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.

Just because everybody else is engaged in a group hug with Barack Obama doesn't mean that somebody doesn't have to tell the truth.

Most of the people I write about I'm still in touch with, so I would be loath to make up stuff about them.

I was a bad journalist.

In this day and age, much of journalism is about right or left, conservative or liberal, and 'The Observer' is just that: an observer. It is about truth.

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

I think what's always important is not to be contrarian for its own sake but to really get at the truth.

I think it's time for the people and the press, in particular, to be more vigilant about not giving equal weight to lies as they give the truth.

Every person must be his own watchman for the truth, because the forefathers did not trust government to separate the true from the false for us.

I don't attempt to make people uncomfortable; I think that my standards in terms of art and journalism always have necessitated my discomfort.

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

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.

I encourage members of the media to attempt to Be Best in their own professions.

The thing that bothers me about journalism is the false equivalency we sometimes place on certain issues.

The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.

I really like individualism based on truth.

He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.

Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and ‘the public’s right to know’; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

I have so much more compassion for journalists and the work that they have to do, in order to do the jobs that they have to do. I am much more in awe of and am celebratory of great journalism when I see it, and I'm much more critical of bad journalism, or crap masquerading as journalism.

Just because something is typed-whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book-this does not mean that it is true.

If it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true.

Show me a contented newspaper editor and I will show you a bad newspaper.

One does not want to be deceived, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived.

Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.