P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

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.

The big moment for me was making 'All the President's Men'. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?

I'm doing real journalism.

I just don't understand why people decide to be journalists if they're not willing to investigate hard-hitting news stories.

Journalists prize independence - not teamwork.

As journalists, we keep pushing and pushing.

Journalism is not just a cause, it's also a wacky profession.

I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.

As a journalist, one tends to think there's nothing off limits.

Rule number one of journalism is that trying to get in between a journalist and a story he wants to tell is like trying to stop a herd of stampeding cattle.

The function of journalism is, primarily, to uncover vital new information in the public interest and to put that information in a context so that we can use it to improve the human condition.

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

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

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.

Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist's job is very interesting.

Journalism is what maintains democracy. It's the force for progressive social change.

In essence, I see the value of journalism as resting in a twofold mission: informing the public of accurate and vital information, and its unique ability to provide a truly adversarial check on those in power.

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.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

As a print journalist, if you hear a rumour you try to stand it up and if you can't, the story dies. With a blog you can throw the rumour out there and ask for help. You can say: 'We don't know if this is true or not.'

People who think there is something pedestrian about journalism are just ignorant.

The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isn't a profession, it's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and you're all set.

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

I'm not an investigative journalist; I don't track crime or police blotters.