Journalism Purpose Quotes

Every journalism bromide - speaking truth to power, comforting the afflicted, afflicting the powerful - that otherwise would be hopelessly sappy to a journalist of any experience, has become a Twitter grail. The true business of journalism has become obscured because there is really no longer a journalism business.

Let me go back to a fundamental thing we all used to agree on: information is power. That's why we became journalists in the first place.

I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.

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

The whole notion of journalism being an institution whose fundamental purpose is to educate and inform and even, one might say, elevate, has altered under commercial pressure, perhaps, into a different kind of purpose, which is to divert and distract and entertain.

The profession of journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know - not what they want to know.

For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside human rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend the rights of those who have none was the reason I became a journalist in the first place. Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights.

I have always argued that newspapers should not have any civic purpose beyond telling readers what is happening... A reporter who doesn't quickly tell readers what they most want to know - the score - won't last long. Better he should teach political science.

Journalism's ultimate purpose is to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests.

Do I think I was put here on earth to be a journalist and to seek truth? No, I don't.

The point of journalism is to hold people in positions of power accountable.

I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism.

After working at the 'Guardian' for two decades, I feel I know instinctively why it exists. Most of our journalists and our readers do, too - it's something to do with holding power to account and upholding liberal values.

The sole aim of journalism should be service.

It is not to benefit CBS, not to benefit its reporters. On this one, the entire basis of it is this is a way to get more information, more important information to the public. And that's why so many states recognize this.

There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter.

I guess I went into journalism to save the world. I always felt through writing that I wanted to rotate the world slightly.

My reporting in Africa wouldn't be political per se, but it's certainly the point of my reporting - and of a lot of other reporters I know: Human suffering is bad, and if reporting stories about it brings it to light and someone does something, that's part of the point of journalism. And it's a thin line between that and activism, and you have to be careful about that.