David Frum Quotes

Needless, heedless, wanton and deliberate injury of the sort inflicted by Life's picture story is not an essential instrument of responsible journalism.

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

Pandering to the scandal hungry public is a total lack of responsible journalism.

It's essential that the media is sober and intentional in everything they do, and that's something we should all keep top of mind.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

The biggest problem I have in journalism is being quoted or misquoted and then being asked to defend something I haven't said.

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

But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.

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

We in the media should be breaking the news and not making the news.

When the crisis at the core of our nation’s political decline is a direct attack on the truth, the institution that should take the lead in confronting and correcting that danger is the press.

The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself

Even the very best newspapers have never learned how to handle public figures who lie with a straight face.

You hope the American people are fair. We recognize journalists have to kill somebody each week.

I reject the idea that journalists are messengers of the truth. It’s arrogant. I think journalism is a search for the little relative truths that at best keep us relatively sane.

It seems that in the rush to be the first one to the story, the media overstates things. Not maliciously; I don't think they're intentionally misleading. But the credibility gap is already there, and in this rush to get to the story first, a lot of mainstream outlets just erode their credibility further.

I think the media's responsibility is to get to the bottom of things - to get to the truth.

When you are a journalist, you have a big responsibility towards your audience and it is important to respect that responsibility.

Understanding how the media actually works is critical. Because editors depend on ignorance and media illiteracy to ply their trade. The fact that many readers expect fact checking, editorial oversight, and ethics actually makes it easier for the media to be lazy.

The media is supposed to be custodians of the facts and watchdogs of government. They have, for the most part, neglected to be either of those things.

I couldn't say a specific thing, but the media is not really held to high standards anymore.

I think the media has to continually remind itself, and I think we do but sometimes not well enough that we're not just an economic property.

At no time in our lives has the media ever acknowledged they were wrong about anybody. They have never felt the need to apologize for getting something terribly wrong. They have never, after trying to character assassinate people, apologized for doing it when shown they're wrong.

The media has a responsibility. And we can't let them totally get away because they have to let the truth be seen and be told.

I have long been a supporter of a free and independent press and I always will be. But with freedom comes responsibility.