Jon Meacham Quotes

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

It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about.

Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.

I don't think much of the journalism that I see.

There's a great deal of enthusiasm about quality, serious journalism. And some of it relates to personalities because it's people who do the news. But I think it reflects a real desire for facts, real news and reporting.

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

Where are reliable journalism and reliable investigative voices going to come from? I love the days of old - the Walter Cronkites, the Dan Rathers.

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

Given what the media have put the country through this past decade, it must come as a surprise to most Americans that the press has a code of ethics.

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

I happen to believe that any legitimate news organization in the world would do that interview. And if the United States is going to be a proponent of a free press, it has to walk the walk.

News and entertainment are getting dangerously intertwined.

Journalism is a giant catapult set in motion by pygmy hatreds.

A news-writer is a man without virtue who lies at home for his own profit.

How do you know the news is reliable if you didn’t gather it yourself?

In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world. They reflect the deeds and the pursuits of diverse peoples and kindreds. They both reflect them and make them known. They are a mirror endowed with hearing, sight and speech. This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behooveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiment of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing.

It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell.

It’s a lot easier and cheaper to have thumbsuckers and pundits on television than it is to have reporters and news bureaus around the world.

The more servile a reporter is toward his sources, the more authoritative he can appear in print.

The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news.

Journalists should wear a white uniform to indicate the purity of their character.

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

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

I accept the media for what they are. Most of them are really good people. Some of them are scumbags.

It's CNN's bigger problem that CNN wants to deny reality. I, too, used to drink the Kool-Aid that it was a top journalism operation that reports without bias. Now that I'm outside the walls of traditional media, I know there is no such thing.