Ethical Reporting Quotes

The news is a public service. It's a way to inform people of what's going on in their world. And when you make it about ratings and make it about ad dollars, there's no incentive to inform people. The incentive is to be sensationalistic and get as many people to watch as you can without any regard for truth or objectivity.

Business pages of American newspapers should not read like a scandal sheet.

Readers appreciate the truth. Why say, 'Some think a situation is a mess?' Based on my reporting, if a situation is a mess, then I say that. The truth is always what reporters tell each other when they get back to the newsroom.

Is there Gawker ethics? I mean, I guess there's Gawker ethics. It's a dangerous thing to talk about.

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

I think the way to be an influential journalist is to be accurate and to be fair and to get things right and to really characterize things in an honest way, versus being really snarky or cheerleading.

We as IG’s [inspectors general] depend on whistle blowers.

The first duty of a newspaper is to be accurate. If it be accurate, it follows that it is fair.

When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject.

Politicians, you know Harry Reid hates you. We get it. But when somebody from "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post" is saying this stuff, that's different, that's offensive, that's wrong.

If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you.

One of the differences between what happens when an author and a gossip columnist sit down to write a book is that the former tends to make every effort at disguising and protecting their sources, while the latter doesn't particularly care.

I don't claim to be a journalist. I hold myself to higher standards of transparency and disclosure.

The news is best when it's serious.

The heroes of obtrusiveness, people with whom no soldier would lie down in the trenches, though he has to submit to being interviewed by them, break into recently abandoned royal castles so that they can report, "We got there first!" It would be far less shameful to be paid for committing atrocities than for fabricating them.

Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

The Media: bold sex and violence, timid politics and morals.

One of the principles of journalism is you don't lie. You never lie.

After Watergate, which happened when I was in college, I became increasingly inspired by journalism as a way to change the world. It sounds corny, but to wake the public up, to serve a higher cause.

The best crime reporters don't mind charging in - but they also know how to do it as decent human beings.

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.

The journalist should be on his guard against publishing what is false in taste or exceptionable in morals.

I think it's important for the public to know, great reporting starts with a publisher who has guts and an editor who has guts.

It's about being right and trying to get the facts and get the story right, and inform, you know, the readership or the viewership. And there are some reporters that do that.

Conflict, when used as a device, makes for good television and bad journalism.