Journalism Objectivity Quotes

I'm a news anchor; I'm not an ideologue.

When I was in journalism school, you were taught to be completely objective. But we don't see that anymore.

I don't think journalists in World War II were objective about the Nazis, and I don't think they should have been.

Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

If you consider the great journalists in history, you don't see too many objective journalists on that list.

When you are being anti-lie or pro-truth, you come across as being anti-Trump or pro-Democrat, and it's a very tough thing for those of us who are just working journalists and still believe in the notion of objectivity.

It is not the reporter's job to be a patriot or to presume to determine where patriotism lies. His job is to relate the facts.

With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

A newspaper may somewhat arrogantly assert that it prints "all the news that's fit to print." But no newspaper yet has been moved to declare at the end of each edition, "That's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite does.

My job as a television anchor or television reporter is not to proselytize.

The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and advertisers ... is absurd.

The whole sort of debate of classic objective journalism versus a new immersion journalism - that can go on forever... I made no bones about my position: I don't think you can be objective.

I do not subscribe to the advocacy journalism school. It's not who I am and not who CNN wants me to be.

I think I'm careful. My goal is to try to stay away as much from opinion journalism as possible.

The journalist cannot create his subjects any more than the analyst can create his patients.

If you want to take off your journalist outfit and declare yourself a pundit and go argue against Donald Trump, go for it. But you can't wear both hats.

Letting journalism be from the perspective of the journalist. It's usually a no-no, and journalists are encouraged to be completely objective.

In terms of the rise of social media and the kind of discourse that it encourages, the kind of pointed attitude it encourages, in terms of the number of venues like our conversation here where reporters who are not technically opinion columnists are giving analysis that's invariably gonna edge into opinion. I think our journalism is getting much more almost European in terms of that, that ideal of objectivity exiting it.

Because I would never work for a niche publication or a niche program on television and because I am a journalist and not an opinion person, my job is to try to see how many different points of view I can represent or how. It's not even a question of who you don't offend because you are always going to offend somebody. The question is how can you get people to listen to the information you have to present.

It should be apparent that the belief in objectivity in journalism, as in other professions, is not just a claim about what kind of knowledge is reliable. It is also a moral philosophy, a declaration of what kind of thinking one should engage in, in making moral decisions. It is, moreover, a political commitment, for it provides a guide to what groups one should acknowledge as relevant audiences for judging one's own thoughts and acts.