Bill Keller Quotes

Scepticism is a necessary and vital part of the journalist's toolkit. But when scepticism becomes cynicism it can close off thought and block the search for truth.

If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth.

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.

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

Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough 'facts' and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.

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

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

All I know is what I do each and every day and what we do here at CNN, which is all about the facts, asking tough questions, challenging leaders and our own leadership in this country.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.

The media's job is to question a premise.

Most reporters are so transactional rather than strategic.

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.

The news used to be to report facts and allow you to make the decision.

A hard-hitting investigative report that uncovers a nugget of genuine truth is the ultimate viral hit.

I said that I'm only there to write the truth, I'm not going to cover anything up, but I'll put everything in context and get as close to the truth of this person as I can.

I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

One of the most important disciplines in journalism is to challenge your working premises.

The most important thing about my profession is finding the truth, finding the reality of these shows.

The curse of a journalist is that he always has more questions than answers.

I'm a working journalist. I'm interested in all points of view, and I draw conclusions based on facts, not just on opinions.

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.

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.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.