Harold Evans Quotes

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

I think the media spends a lot of time fooling itself.

There's no worse crime in journalism these days than simply deciding something's a story because Drudge links to it.

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

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.

Nothing is more idealistic than a journalist on the defensive.

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw in character.

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

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

Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.

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

Journalists like to give themselves credit for being on the hunt for 'the truth.' But if we embrace this undoubtedly noble but somewhat haughty interpretation of a calling, we inevitably become susceptible to slam dunk answers.

Journalists always explain that people are mad at them because they tell the truth, which is often unpleasant or uncomfortable to hear. However, they fail in situations where there is more than one truth.

I don't want to paint everybody with the same broad brush. But I do think that the majority of folks now in the briefing room, that are going into journalism - they're not there for the facts and the pursuit of the truth.

Being beyond politics, I am able to examine the role of the media without worrying about the indignant harrumphing that emanates from many journalists and commentators when you do so.

I am a big believer in the power of journalism; it's a heroic pursuit.

Journalists have to call out and correct the lies and smears polluting the air waves.

Journalism is kind of scary and of it we should be wary.

I think the media is dangerously close to creating their own product. They used to cover the product, which was whatever's happening.

I quote the late Ed Murow. ... He said: 'Look, people listen to me when they want an eyewitness account. 'They think I'm a pretty good reporter. But when it comes to my opinions, mine are not worth anymore than the guy at the end of the bar.' And I believe that about myself.

I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of their traditional freedoms while giving the reader as much of the truth as they think is good for him.

I've always been more interested in the content of our newspapers, political positions day to day, the thrill of communicating with people through words that I am in the pure business aspects.

Let us, rather, gather facts, all the facts, regardless of aesthetic appeal or theoretical social worth, and spread those facts before us not as the soothsayer spreads the innards of a turkey but as a newspaper spreads its columns. Let us be journalists, then. And like all good journalists, we shall present our facts in an order that will satisfy the famous five W's: wow, whoopee, wahoo, why-not and whew.

I got in journalism for any number of reasons, not least because it's so much fun. Journalism should be in the business of putting pressure on power, finding out the truth, of shining a light on injustice, of, when appropriate, being amusing and entertaining - it's a complicated and varied beast, journalism.