Being A Journalist Quotes & Sayings

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues, and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken. — P. J. O'Rourke

The reason why she had chosen journalism was because of those who had done so before her. Stalwart women and men who reported stories in the days before the Internet. Before it was fashionable to learn Mass Communication. A long time before being a TV reporter and calling up your family to see your face beamed to their homes was an in thing. They were those who had left their families behind as they pursued the truth, opting to go to jail when the government hounded them to reveal their sources. Men and women that would rather quit than write editorials the management wanted them to write. Journalists who never wrote a word they would have to disown. Journalists who took their last breath as they wrote an article was true to what they believed in. They would never sit down and take stock of the stories they had covered and written saying, So what if twenty of these are non-stories, I at least had five I believed in. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

The man is a humbug - a vulgar, shallow, self-satisfied mind, absolutely inaccessible to the complexities and delicacies of the real world. He has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view and being always on the side of the angels: Walter Helwich merely annoys a reader who has the least experience of knowing things, of what knowing is like. There is not two pence worth of real thought or real nobility in him. But he isn't dull ... — C.S. Lewis

A journalist enjoys a privileged position. In exchange for not being able to participate in the rough-and-tumble issues of a community, we are given license to observe it all, based on the understanding that we'll tell everyone what happens fairly and squarely. That's harder than it sounds. — Bill Kurtis

Then I get worried that if anyone is really paying attention to Happy's predilections, they might become wary of his wholesale compassion and suspect him of being an imaginary character, created by a journalist, to trick businesses into inadvertently revealing their data-trafficking practices. So I untick tigers. — Jon Ronson

Shockingly (to maybe only me), being in a relationship has done the opposite of limiting me. It's emboldened me to try something much scarier than I would have tried if I were alone. Maybe Rachel the Hasidic journalist was right: love frees you to be the person you actually are. — Kristin Newman

I've played journalists before, and I have good friends who are journalists. I think being an actor is not very far from being a journalist. Because you investigate, you try to understand, you're asking questions, you're interested in the other. — Juliette Binoche

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. — Megan Fox

I am being ripped off, because I've never lied to the press. Just as much truth I bring to my work, a journalist should bring that much truth to their work. — Tupac Shakur

Before he was assassinated in 1948, Gandhi - a senior journalist told me - rebuked Nehru and Patel for not being able to reign in the partition madness and wished that his "other son [Subhas] was here!" Reminded by a Congressman, who had witnesses the dressing down, that Bose was dead and he had himself come to hold that belief, Gandhi shot back: "He's in Russia". — Anuj Dhar

Being a journalist, being exposed to the world, to social injustice, to intolerance, growing up here, under apartheid, benefitting from that, has all shaped who I am and what my passions are, and of course that's going to come through in my writing. — Lauren Beukes

Being a journalist, Hacker had no particular talent for reporting facts. — Jonathan Lynn

At this point, any scientist, doctor, journalist, or policy maker who denies or minimizes the importance of a whole food, plant-based diet for individual and societal well-being simply isn't looking clearly at the facts. There's just too much good evidence to ignore anymore. — T. Colin Campbell

In Kendall's mind, there were only three types of women: good, bad, and fallen. Being a journalist muddied my position in his moral hierarchy, but Kendall tried to ignore that inconvenience and slot me into the first group. It was cold comfort. I'd read that in a man like this, afflicted with the conditions Dr. Stone had mentioned, admiration was intertwined with hatred. So labeling a person "good" meant he would almost automatically see her as withholding approval. Any resulting feelings of stress or shame then morphed immediately into overwhelming rage. That — Claudia Rowe

As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller - documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film. — Marshall Curry

Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness that I didn't have the courage to sustain
a fear of heights, which sometimes during the carnival of the 1960s accompanied my attempts to transform the bourgeois journalist into an avant-garde novelist. The stepped-up ambition was a commonplace among the would-be William Faulkners of my generation; nearly always it resulted in commercial failure and literary embarrassment. — Lewis H. Lapham

I have no business being a journalist. I'm the least, I'm the least - I'm the most trusting, I absolutely make a habit of believing anything that anybody tells me about themselves. I've never had any reason in the world to think that anyone has wanted to harm me, or lie to me. I believe whatever is being sold, most of the time. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The problem with being a journalist is you go places and you're working. You don't get to appreciate everything. But I got enough of a sampler of South Africa; I thought, 'I want to come here when I don't have to interview people for a living so that I can really enjoy it.' Because I think it was just a magnificent place. — Lester Holt

When I was in college, I did sort of want to be a journalist. Being an actor, you kind of have the same interest. You go into a story, and you tell it from your point of view for people who aren't there. That's what an actor does with a character. But the real life is more more interesting. — Sigourney Weaver

There have been trade-offs every day, every month, every year. There's a lot that I missed and I do have regrets in that area. But I have been able to bring to my family the richness of being a journalist. — Judy Woodruff

We have a game we play when we're waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was [in my twenties], I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy. — Nora Ephron

There's very little you could do to prepare to be a correspondent on 'The Daily Show,' because it's not being a journalist, it's not being an actor. It involves elements of both of those things, but they're not required necessarily as job experience. It's helpful if you know how to improvise, but again, not a requirement. — Steve Carell

As a journalist, I've always treaded carefully about being Jewish and caring a lot about Israel and having that not become too big of an issue that could affect my journalism. But I also don't think it's essential to my Judaism, as I think it might be for some other people. — David Gregory

Being a journalist seemed the ideal way of both having a job and experiencing the world, especially for anyone with a sense of adventure. — Jackie Kennedy

Until I was 21, I wasn't going into the media. I was a professional show jumper; I was going to have a farm ... Then my father died, and it changed my life. I realised I had to have a go at being a journalist to see if I could cut the mustard. — Jonathan Dimbleby

As a youngster, I think I said I wanted to be a journalist, but that's a disguise for being a writer. — Romesh Gunesekera

Being a journalist, you write what you see. If we can't do that, what use are we? I turned years of training on myself. — Katie Hafner

I was happy being a journalist. I didn't realize losing my job, my identity went with it. — Maria Shriver

I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don't think it's anyone else's business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I'm not an activist, but I am a human being and I don't give that up by being a journalist. — Anderson Cooper

If I wanted to take a more activist or journalistic slant in work, I should probably just go be an activist or a journalist. But I'm happy being a comedian. — John Oliver

I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world you're in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree. — Mark Leibovich

My master's degree was in journalism, but everything important I ever learned about being a journalist I learned on the job. — Rebecca Mead

Being a journalist, I never feel bad talking to journalism students because it's a grand, grand caper. You get to leave, go talk to strangers, ask them anything, come back, type up their stories, edit the tape. That's not gonna retire your loans as quickly as it should, and it's not going to turn you into a person who's worried about what kind of car they should buy, but that's kind of as it should be. I mean, it beats working. — David

I'd known since I was a child that I was going to live in New York eventually, and that everything in between would be just an intermission. I'd spent all those years imagining what New York was going to be like. I thought it was going to be the most exciting, magical, fraught-with-possibility place that you could ever live; a place where if you really wanted something you might be able to get it; a place where I'd be surrounded by people I was dying to know; a place where I might be able to become the only thing worth being, a journalist. And I'd turned out to be right. — Nora Ephron

I think every journalist understands when they are the beneficiary of hot information that, yes, they have a scoop, but they're also being used. Part of your responsibility as a journalist is to tell the story of why that information is coming to you, consistent with the ground rules of your sourcing. — John Hockenberry

As a professional journalist, I am always looking for new ways to get paid for being motionless. — Dave Barry

Really, Rachel. It's old news. And Alex won't be interested. She's not even a proper journalist. She does the animal column, obsessed with dogs. I remember her seeing the story. She said she had no time for the man. He'd raised some ludicrous idea about people not being allowed to have more than one dog or something. — Mary Grand

Being a famous print journalist is like being the best-dressed woman on radio. — Robin Williams

It's great being a journalist, because our office is the world. — Rebecca Aguilar

I'm Harvard-educated; I'm an economist by training. I'm an author, a journalist, as well as being active in community development. — Winona LaDuke

Science discovered long ago that carbon is a source of life. The ashes of my faith have prepared the ground for the planting of seeds that have produced new forms of truth, morality and meaning on my own terms, not according to the dogma laid down by religious ruffians or a vengeful God. If, as believers claim, the word "gospel" means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a journalist and free-thinking human being, I have come not to favor and fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement. — Steve Benson

We're none of us, are we, just one thing? I am a policeman, but also a father, a husband for the time being, a nursemaid to a sister who I pray will survive her illness. You are a journalist, a writer, and I don't know what else besides. To look at a person from a single angle is to deform them. Even if Yolanda is guilty...she is also afraid of the dark. And I cannot forget that I put her there. — Nicholas Shakespeare

Becoming a politician is the only step down I could take from being a journalist. — Jim Hightower

And I came away from that experience, and it was a very difficult experience - I came to understand that you have to practice at being a good father and practice at being a good husband, just as you have to practice at being a good journalist. — Bob Schieffer

Being curious is the most important part of being a journalist. It might be the most important part of being anything. — Lemony Snicket

Trust is the most important aspect of being a journalist. If people don't trust or find you relatable - you will not have success. — Gretchen Carlson

I was trained as journalist never to use the word 'I,' never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word 'I,' you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgement. — Suzy Menkes

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature. Dorothy Day, Catholic social activist and journalist — Sarah Bessey

I think the key to being a journalist is getting your subject to feel comfortable enough to talk about stuff they want to talk about and the stuff they like and don't like, and still feel comfortable about it. — Glenn Danzig

One of the few benefits of being a journalist is that you're not in the Army. — P. J. O'Rourke

Being an American journalist can put people on the defensive. In countries where people assume the press is partisan, like in Lebanon, or where it had essentially become an extension of the government, like in Iraq, people tend to see a journalist as an agent of his or her government. That can be dangerous if the United States military is occupying their country, or aligned with their enemies. — Annia Ciezadlo

I don't think I ever wanted to be a journalist - I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist. — Benjamin Booker

I've rarely done anything that's overtly self-destructive without consciously knowing what I'm doing. And then of course, the astute journalist jumps forward and says, "Why are you being calculated?" Calculated seems to assume a sinister intent. My intent is always for artistic effect. — Billy Corgan

I've never had any interest at all in being a journalist or writing some sort of historically accurate autobiography. — James Frey

Being skeptical is a good thing for a journalist, because it means you don't completely trust anyone. — Lemony Snicket

I gave up on being a journalist - I thought having a point of view was more important than being objective. — Annie Leibovitz

It still would be years before I understood the seriousness of my change of view. Much later, I recognized it in "Revolution," the essay of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who describes the moment when a man on the edge of a crowd looks back defiantly at a policeman - and when that policeman senses a sudden refusal to accept his defining gaze - as the imperceptible moment in which rebellion is born. "All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people," Kapuscinski writes. "They should begin with a psychological chapter - one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process - sometimes accomplished in an instant, like a shock - demands to be illustrated. Man gets rid of fear and feel free. Without that, there would be no revolution. — Gloria Steinem

Working as a journalist is exactly like being the wallflower at an orgy. I always seem to find myself at a perfectly wonderful event where everyone else is having a marvelous time, laughing merrily, eating, drinking, having sex in the back room, and I am standing on the side taking notes on it all. — Nora Ephron

I went to university and studied English literature, and I forgot about music. I was gonna be a journalist. But then I decided to try and be a backing singer, and my mum was like, "Go for it." If that didn't work, I was gonna go to law school. I was just being boringly sensible; trying to be a singer felt a bit indulgent. — Jessie Ware

While people are quick to praise the wisdom of the crowd, being an old-school journalist, I look at the wisdom of the crowd and know it can quickly turn into a mob mentality. — Jason Calacanis

You're a worse punishment than even he deserves, lady," she bit off as she turned away from the phone. "I wouldn't wish you on my worst enemy!"
The phone rang again and she picked it up, ready to give Audrey a fierce piece of her mind. But it was a journalist wanting to know if the story in the tabloids was true, about Tate and Cecily being lovers when she was still in school.
"It most certainly is not," she said curtly. "But I'll tell you what is. Tate Winthrop is marrying Washington socialite Miss Audrey Gannon at Christmas. You can print that, with my blessing!" And she hung up again. — Diana Palmer

I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. — Dorothea Brande

Journalism has been very important for me - for a long time I made my living as a journalist, and it also serves as a source of ideas. Many of the things I have written I would not have written without the experience of being a journalist. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

That was par for the course but I also found that commissions were being canceled and in fact I considered this directly libelous - I write biographies for a living as well as being a journalist - for a non fiction book to be called fiction from beginning to end. — Anthony Holden

Since I'm not a journalist, I talk about issues that encourage an interchange of ideas through conversation while also being entertaining. — Thalia

Being a journalist is good if you want to write books: it teaches you to get beyond the blank screen. My books have been described as froth, but there's scope to be witty and ironic about everything in life. — Sophie Kinsella

I worked very hard as a young journalist learning the trade and asking questions, understanding what a story is and being able to present that in a way that people would find interesting. — Jill Douglas

I think being Canadian helps you as a journalist in America, because you're sort of on the outside watching this big party going on, and you're sort of taking mental notes as it goes on. I think if you're in the party the whole time, you don't notice it as much. And I think Canadians are very good observers of American culture. — Graydon Carter

Being a journalist influenced me as a novelist. I mean, a lot of critics think I'm stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No. The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible. — Kurt Vonnegut

I did my degree in journalism, and I then went on to being a games journalist, reviewing and previewing games and writing about the industry, visiting and interviewing developers. — Rhianna Pratchett

What I love - and I'm a journalist - and what I love is finding hidden patterns; I love being a data detective. — David McCandless

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going. — Richard Branson

I like my job and I want to do well at it but I think there's much more integrity to being a journalist maybe than being an actor. — Jessica Lucas

You know I take music seriously, right? So I expect journalists to take being a journalist seriously. — Glenn Danzig

I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the celebrity culture in America. My background is as a news journalist, and newsrooms in the US are shrinking - investigation teams are being terminated or shrunk on newspapers all around the country. The one aspect that's expanded is coverage of celebrity culture. — Carl Hiaasen

Daniel Defoe was an English writer, journalist and spy, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain. In some texts he is even referred to as one of the founders, if not the founder, of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote over five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer of economic journalism. Source: Wikipedia — Daniel Defoe

I stopped being an engaged journalist and became a disengaged novelist. — Jim Crace

Whenever a journalist wrote an article about him that was critical in nature... he would invite them to a meal and at first they assumed they were in trouble for being critical of him. But they soon learned after arrival at his house for a meal that he merely wanted to engage with them to get an understanding of they criticism... Madiba didn't attempt to change their minds. He would have an informed opinion after having engaged with them, and even though he occasionally changed an opinion by offering correct information, they never parted feeling hostile. — Zelda La Grange

At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands - a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say. — Mark Twain

Being here really is just the invitation to rest as Being. There is nothing you have to do. It is not an invitation to become. You will not be scrutinized, your actions compared with those of others. Thats just unicorn food. Let your river flow as it pleases. Simply observe and recognise that all is unfolding spontaneously when that inner journalist- the ego, is exposed as a myth. — Mooji

I am not insecure about being a journalist. — Tucker Carlson

As a longtime journalist, this quote from the delicious Nora Ephron made me smile in recognition of its truth:
Working as a journalist is exactly like being the wallflower at the orgy ... everyone else is having a marvelous time, laughing merrily, eating, drinking, having sex in the back room, and I am standing on the side taking notes. — Nora Ephron

The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name. — Asne Seierstad

One of the advantages of being a national journalist of some recognition is that you come across high-profile people, and many become your friends. — Tom Brokaw

You have to draw lines between being a journalist and an activist. — Michael Pollan

Being a journalist got me to meet with children who had witnessed all their beliefs, all their faith in the world collapse. — Roselyne Bosch

It was a challenge for me to do a plot because I'd been an essayist and a journalist. I had to be vigilant about moving things along and being entertaining. — Meghan Daum

For much of my life as a journalist, I've viewed myself as being embedded with civilians and with those people who live on the other side of the barrel of a gun. — Jeremy Scahill

The ones that bother me the most are the media saying, He's like the next Bill Hicks. It's supposed to be complimentary, but then all these Bill Hicks fans show up thinking you're going to be like him, and then go, You're no Bill Hicks. And I'm like, I never wanted to try to be like him, I don't think I'm anything like him at all, and now you're mad at me for not being him because a journalist didn't have a better reference. — Doug Stanhope

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist. — Cameron Crowe

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one. — Ian McKellen

But being an American woman married to an Arab guy - and a Muslim to boot! - put me in a different category. People would open up, and tell me things that they would never tell another journalist, no matter how persistent. — Annia Ciezadlo