Donald Rumsfeld 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.

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

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.

I think that the press has a duty and an obligation to report on local government, state government, federal government - to be aggressive, to do its job. And its job is to report on whatever it's covering.

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

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

Every war has seen unscrupulous reporters who are willing to hurt the national effort, even betray secrets, for the sake of a story…but it did no good to treat the press as enemies.

The press are the representative of the people and they have a right to know, but they don’t have the right to know right now…. There is an art to telling the truth slowly.

This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that.

The press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them.

I think it's a lack of journalistic integrity to print things with anonymous sources.

The job of the press is to defend their institution, hold the government accountable and freely report and gather information.

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

Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule. That's why my hero, admittedly a flawed one, is a journalist.

I think it's a good thing that there are bloggers out there watching very closely and holding people accountable. Everyone in the news should be able to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. I'm for as much transparency in the newsgathering process as possible.

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

There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.

I've been saying in the press that being a NY Post investigator reporter is an oxymoron.

Forty years ago, we were on the tail of the Front Page era. There was a different point of view. Reporters and editors were more forgiving of public people. They didn't think they had to stick someone in jail to make a career.

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.

A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts.

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

I'm in the business, as a journalist, of asking tough questions.

The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.

CBS fought very hard on this because it believed and believes that there's a principle at stake here. The principle is that Dan Rather doesn't work for the police, and that people that speak to Dan Rather understand that he's a journalist and not a police agent.