Newsroom Dynamics Quotes

I was at CBS News on a fluke. I replaced somebody who was on vacation. I worked as a copy boy, then became a news writer.

When I started in news on the 'Six O'Clock,' I was 36 and felt very inexperienced.

Andy Stasiuk was a newsman of the old school of front-page journalism - tough, knowledgeable, cynical, single-minded and fun. He covered the news as a happy warrior in an era of cutthroat editorial competition.

My stint as general manager of MSNBC made me particularly sensitive to how the big stories are covered.

We were badly held back not just by the technology, but by the culture of journalism.

For about a year, I worked for 'Daily Kos.' They were great. I mean, they allowed me to write whatever I was thinking about and feeling. 'The New York Daily News' saw it. They were making some pretty big changes. They hired a new editor in chief. I was his first hire.

When I left Toronto and entered journalism in the late 1990s, I had many notions about the news business, nearly all of them wrong, as it turned out.

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.

I do know something about the news world. I was sitting on the floors of newsrooms since I was seven years old, and I've been around them my whole life. I understand that someone looks at a story with famous people in it, and you want to put it out.

Going from local news to a network operation is learning a whole new ballgame. The way you go about it and the stories you cover are so different. I feel at Fox I have a lot more autonomy about doing my work.

The best newspapermen I know are those most thrilled by the daily pump of city room excitements; they long fondly for a good murder; they pray that assassinations, wars, catastrophes break on their editions.

I always saw the best reporters as ones you hardly ever saw other than when they were back in the newsroom, writing their stories.

Most national correspondents will tell you they rely on stringers and researchers and interns and clerks and news assistants.

Very rarely are you going to see the large shareholder or CEO of a corporation march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this story, don't cover that." It's a much more subtle process. The professional code adapts, but what we try to see, is how commercial and corporate pressure shape both the professional code and the sorts of things that are considered legitimate journalism and illegitimate journalism.

When I bought 'The New York Observer,' my experience in journalism was limited to a single article I had written for a college magazine.

It was great to learn producing news from the bottom up and although I often looked at the reporters and thought, 'I could do that!'

When I stepped down from the evening news at the age of 65, in '81, things were still going well. Immediately after that, the whole tenor of the CBS News Department changed.

Going from reporter to anchor is like going from wide receiver to quarterback. As anchor, you're running the plays and having the feel of the show - and knowing when to be more upbeat or slow down.

I'm an ex-'Globe' guy. My friends are depicted in 'Spotlight.'

We were there [ in the newsroom] through the elections [2008] so it was quite a frenzy going on. The other thing I learn is that journalists are very messy.

I've been getting pulled from newspapers for my entire career.

When either major stories break or something just really touches me, I initiate and pitch, then follow through. I will literally march across the newsroom and bang on the president of CNN's door. He knows when I'm coming.

An editorial writer might consult a reporter to see what she thinks, if it is what she covers. But they are entirely independent.