Journalism Industry Quotes

Many years ago I had two small children, and I wanted to be able to be home when they got home from school. And I didn't like the direction journalism was taking. I thought if I could write books, I could work at home and have the best of both worlds. I wrote my first mystery while still working full time, and it didn't sell, but the next one did sell, so I quit my job for the world of fiction. Scary, but I've never regretted it for a single day.

I like journalists.

The Chicago City News Bureau was a tripwire for all the newspapers in town when I was there, and there were five papers, I think. We were out all the time around the clock and every time we came across a really juicy murder or scandal or whatever, they'd send the big time reporters and photographers, otherwise they'd run our stories. So that's what I was doing, and I was going to university at the same time.

Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away. They just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981.

Like every other industry or institution, the journalism world is populated by the petty and fearful, in addition to the courageous and brilliant.

When I started in the press there were really ink-stained wretches. Not everybody went to college. Now, everybody at the New York Times and the Washington Post and Salon and Slate, most of them have Ivy League educations.

I write a syndicated column for The Washington Post that goes to about 200, 250 papers.

I think that's a really important role that people sometimes forget about, especially with all these newspaper shutting down and having trouble, where are all these stories going to go? I think you have something really great with all those stories waiting to be told, but I just don't know how it shapes up exactly. I don't think there are going to be a lot of newspaper reporters sitting around not writing.

Journalists have made celebrities into an industry.

Real crime-beat investigative journalism does seem to be really dwindling, especially in this age with everything being centered around iPhones. Everyone's a journalist today, essentially. Every pedestrian on the street has the potential of capturing a big story on their mobile device and then selling it and making a lot of money.

I've operated and launched newspapers all over the world.

I think there's always satisfaction that comes from digging in and telling a story and being on the front line and writing about it. I think there's a venue available if you look. Even print journalism is in good shape in areas.

I started as a journalist actually. I graduated from Northwestern Medill School of Journalism and with my degree discovered, once out in the real world, I wasn't very good at it.

There is no doubt that the way journalism worked when I was growing up and getting started has changed forever.

I will say this: Boy, did I get lucky to work with Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington.

You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.

When I first started out as a young journalist, I know that on at least two occasions, when I walked into a newsroom, I knew I was replacing the black person in that job.

Just as infinite access to free music ultimately leads to no one making a living at music anymore, free journalism just doesn't pay for itself - particularly not when a search engine is serving all the ads.

When I was a freelancer, I thought this journalism thing was a racket, and now that I'm where I am now, I know it's a racket.

If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year.

The worst part of my life is newspapers are still alive.

I wrote newspaper articles professionally for seven years, and I love newspapers. I'm hopeful that new business models will emerge that allow the newspaper culture to genuinely thrive in the digital age.