Quotes & Sayings About Journalist

To be a good sports journalist takes many things, but the main thing it takes is the ability to listen and follow your nose - see something, sense something and follow it. — Steve Bunce

I grew up listening in awe to stories of their wartime adventures. My granny, Joan, was a journalist and wrote amazing letters to my grandpa when he was a prisoner of war, while my nana, Mary, was a Land Girl, then a Wren. They were so independent, resilient and glamorous. — Laura Carmichael

I realise that, strutting around in power corridors for political coverage, a journalist becomes half a politician. — Rajeev Shukla

Everybody I knew, practically, was a journalist when I was a kid - my father, all of his friends. I never wanted to be like those people. — Matt Taibbi

The dividing line between a journalist and an author is very thin. If a journalist is not author, it is his or her call. — K.S.R. Menon

I was a bad journalist. — David Brock

So tel me, Mr. Science Journalist, do you still doubt the existence of miracles?"

"I just told you. You're my miracle. — Nicholas Sparks

We have a problem with several media taking only a part of the reality and not the whole picture. Some media in the world are more critical towards what's happening than others. It depends on the journalist, it depends how much information they have about the case and which perspective they are asking you from. All of these things can play a role. — Ahmed Akkari

I'm just a journalist. I shine a mirror to the culture. I give the cop-out answer. — Mark Leibovich

I'm a lousy journalist. — Judith Rossner

The ability to keep things in perspective is very important for a journalist. In a tense situation you need the ability to be there, yet somehow step aside; to keep a cool head and keep working without getting frustrated. — Philip Jones Griffiths

As a journalist, your job is to bear witness. — Anthony Shadid

I have learned as a journalist that if you look long enough and hard enough and carefully enough, most truths are discoverable. — Edward Klein

Concussions is one of these pack journalism issues, frankly. There's no increase in concussions. The number is relatively small. The problem is, it is a journalist issue. — Paul Tagliabue

A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination, why they never wrote about the present. This bothered me until I realized why - that a novelist wants to know how it comes out, that he can't be omnipotent writing a book about the present, particularly this one. — John Steinbeck

Don't call me a journalist; I hate the word. It's pretentious! — Jimmy Breslin

I've never really felt like a journalist. I've felt like a writer and a diarist. I have made myself vulnerable in my writing, and I think that vulnerability makes people strong. My favorite performances or works of art are always people showing that side of themselves. — Tavi Gevinson

For my film 'Fashion,' like an investigative journalist, I went about knowing the people, the models, the fashion designers. Similarly with the corporate world. — Madhur Bhandarkar

My mother worked in advertising and my father was a journalist. But they split up when I was three and I grew up in a single-parent family. My mum brought my brother and I up. — Felicity Jones

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I see myself as a recovering journalist. — Annalena McAfee

I am a hard-news journalist. That is what I do. — Candy Crowley

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

Nothing is more idealistic than a journalist on the defensive. — Melvin Maddocks

I'm a professional journalist. Making up lies to fit the facts - it's what we do. — Andrew Klavan

I wanted to be a journalist for a long time. — Jamie Bell

I was a journalist when I made 'I'm British But ... ' I'd seen how important the media was in terms of defining Indians - after the riots in the '80s, I was like, 'Oh my God!' — Gurinder Chadha

I began as a journalist for my pocketbook and a poet for my soul. — Jane Yolen

As a journalist, my job is to be dispassionate. Suddenly to be the centre of a story and to be crying, it made me feel very insecure. — Natasha Kaplinsky

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I'm 100 percent fiction writer ... I don't want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don't state my political messages to anybody. — Haruki Murakami

"Bolshoi Babylon" is the work of filmmakers Mark Franchetti and Nicholas Read. Franchetti has been a Moscow-based journalist for 18 years. He won a British Press Award for his coverage of the 2002 Moscow theater siege in which 130 hostages were killed. He's covered Russian politics and the war in Ukraine. — Elizabeth Blair Lee

Journalists are bigger terrorists than terrorists themselves. — Asif Ali Zardari

I've learned in my years as a journalist that when a politician says 'That's ridiculous' you're probably on the right track. — Amy Goodman

I've got a particular way of writing novels, and that carries over into the way I write comics and games, too. I'm a news journalist by background, so I approach everything as reporting - I treat it as real, I ask the questions I'd ask in a real situation, and I let the characters speak for themselves. — Karen Traviss

I'm a journalist and that's what I do. — Jim Lehrer

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel. — Louise Penny

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese. — Anthony Shadid

Start with local press first. Start with people you know. Don't pitch every journalist. — Ben Parr

As a print journalist, if you hear a rumour you try to stand it up and if you can't, the story dies. With a blog you can throw the rumour out there and ask for help. You can say: 'We don't know if this is true or not.' — Nick Denton

But they could be frightening, too. "Watching Watergate in Archie Bunker Country," said the cover of the June 18 issue of New York magazine. It began with the author, top-drawer trend journalist Gail Sheehy, recording what happened when the proprietor of Terry's Bar in Astoria, Queens, asked his patrons if he might tune the bar's TV to the hearings. Nine men cried "Forget it!" "The majority called for Popeye cartoons. But Terry couldn't find a channel that wasn't polluted with the 'search for unvarnished truth.' They had no choice. Television was suppressing their freedom not to know." These ironworkers, sandhogs, elevator operators, and beer truck drivers said things like this: that Ted Kennedy "killed a broad" ("Now there was a mountain, and they made a molehill — Rick Perlstein

Well, I don't know how astute I am, but I did want to be a journalist when I was growing up. — Carol Burnett

I'm not a critic. I'm not a journalist. I'm not a philosopher. Arguing that punk has run its course is like saying painting ran its course after the Renaissance. Punk is an idea. It's freedom. And it'll be around 200 years from now for the people who want it. — Patti Smith

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

Never lose your sense of the superficial. — Alfred Harmsworth

Sixteen years as a freelance features journalist taught me that neither the absence of 'the Muse' nor the presence of 'the block' should be allowed to hinder the orderly progress of a book. — Jim Crace

I've been a financial journalist for 30 years. — Peter Brimelow

Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas, - he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working, I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology. — H.G.Wells

The job of a journalist is to amplify the voices of the marginalized. To do that, you have to hear those voices in the first place. — Allison Kilkenny

I'm a mother, I'm a journalist, I'm an American; I'm all of those things, and it really complicates your job when you have all these things come into play. — Paula Zahn

My father was very disappointed by war and fighting. And he thought language could help us out of cycles of revenge and animosity. And so, as a journalist, he always found himself asking lots of questions and trying to gather information. He was always very clear to underscore the fact that Jewish people and Arab people were brother and sister. — Naomi Shihab Nye

Quit your bitching, if you're not pitching — Rebecca Aguilar

"Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!" — Jerome K. Jerome

Certainly, when it comes to my profession as a journalist, that allows the government to trace what you're reporting, who you're talking to, and where you've been. So no matter whether or not I have a commitment to protect my sources, the government may still have information that might allow them to identify whom I'm talking to. — Laura Poitras

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

Whether you're working in corporate America or you're a journalist, construction worker, a teacher or an actor - we're all trying to keep working. If one job is ending, you look for another job. When 'Psych' ends, I will be looking for another job. — Dule Hill

In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves. — George Orwell

As a journalist, it is so easy to get hardened when you see so many stories that are disturbing. Sometimes it's just your survival mechanism that makes you hardened to some of it. — Linda Vester

What's great about 'The Daily Show' is I can use satire and push the envelope. I couldn't do that anywhere else. Even if I was a journalist. — Aasif Mandvi

You know how the best story angles often spring from that thought you have on reading an article or watching a show - that thought you have before the responsible journalist in you comes up with something boring. I usually recommend people get in touch with their deep 'reptilian brain.' — Nick Denton

I have no scientific training at all. I was an English major in school. Everything I learned about science I've learned as a journalist would, finding out what I needed to know. — Michael Pollan

I come to the table from a conservative or libertarian point of view, and I admit that. I'm a commentator. I'm not a journalist or anything else. — Glenn Beck

Early in my publishing career, someone told me I'd need to have five books in print before I could quit my job as a journalist. Turns out it was closer to 10 books. It also turns out that while it's great to see my titles on bookstore shelves, my best customers are schools and libraries. — Kate Klise

I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War's harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps, I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again, I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service. — Jim Webb

I was the first journalist allowed on a hunting boat during harp seal season in almost 15 years. Around the late 1970s, white coat pups became the poster child for the anti-fur movement, and by the '80s, the media was lambasting the hunters for killing them. — Brian Skerry

The very violence of a revolution may make the public grand and splendid for a moment. It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes. Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant and twaddle? — Oscar Wilde

The thrill of working in this building, with its iconic globe on top, would never fade. — Gwenda Bond

I was a journalist and I liked to watch. I was in awe. — Nora Ephron

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward - reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. — Michael Crichton

I'm not an advocacy journalist - that's not what I do. My role in journalism is to be able to engage the most interesting people with the best ideas. — Charlie Rose

I think inside every rock journalist, there's somebody who wishes they had the courage to live the life that they're not, and that they're writing about. But at the same time, inside every songwriter, I guess there's a wish for happiness. — Glen Hansard

A journalist's job is to collect information," Ovid said to Pete.
"Nope," Pete said. "That's what we do. It's not what they do."
Dellarobia was unready to be pushed out of the conversation just like that. "Then what do you think the news people drive their Jeeps all the way out here for?"
"To shore up the prevailing view of their audience and sponsors."
"Pete takes a dim view of his fellow humans," Ovid said. "He prefers insects.
Dellarobia turned her chair halfway around to face Pete, scraping noisily against the cement floor. "You're saying people only tune in to news they know they're going to agree with?"
"Bingo," said Pete. — Barbara Kingsolver

You ever hear about that experiment an American journalist did in Moscow in the 1970s? He just lined up at some building, nothing special about it, just a random door. Sure enough, someone got in line behind him, then a couple more, and before you knew it, they were backed up around the block. No one asked what the line was for. They just assumed it was worth it. I can't say if that story was true. Maybe it's an urban legend, or a cold war myth. Who knows? — Max Brooks

Why did you become a journalist?"
"Better than working for a living. — Leslie Cockburn

Seriously. I'm not playing to prove anything to journalists. I'm playing for myself, for my fans,to make people happy. — Roger Federer

One foreign correspondent came up to be friendly. He asked this man what he should think about what Khomeini had said. How seriously should he take it? Was it just a rhetorical flourish or something genuinely dangerous? "Oh, don't worry too much," the journalist said. "Khomeini sentences the president of the United States to death every Friday afternoon. — Salman Rushdie

Carelessness is not fatal to journalism, nor are cliches, for the eye rests lightly on them. But what is intended to be read once can seldom be read more than once; a journalist has to accept the fact that his work, by its very todayness, is excluded from any share in tomorrow. — Cyril Connolly

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, I just figured it was a testament to how poor French pop was if there was this much fuss about a guy who had one hit record, 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)'. — Sylvie Simmons

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

One journalist estimated my liquid net worth at $25 million. That's pretty close. My houses are worth another $7 million. — Suze Orman

(aspiring journalist to Carl Kolchak)
'Andy knows I want to be a reporter. Like you'
This took me by surprise. 'Sallie, my dear, nobody wants to be a reporter like me. — Elizabeth Massie

It's a little bit in the genes because my brother is a journalist and my father was a sports writer. — Patricia Heaton

There's a lot of people who feel there's a tabloid journalist who had it coming. — Ralph Fiennes

I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line across the paper ...
The effect was one which could only be produced in ordinary parlance by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known even that of the electric arc ...
I did not think I investigated ...
I assumed that the effect must have come from the tube since its character indicated that it could come from nowhere else ... It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new something unrecorded ...
There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy.
[Describing to a journalist the discovery of X-rays that he had made on 8 Nov 1895.] — Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen

I am a journalist and have no earthly motives except curiosity and personal vanity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The more you study, the more you subsequently know; naturally, the more you know, the nearer you get to perfection as a journalist. — Jack Kerouac

As communicators and marketers, people are so accustomed to thinking from the 'top down.' Finding the great analyst or the famous journalist who will endorse what you do and tell the rest of the world to go and buy your product. — Guy Kawasaki

So much of our cultural representation of what an investigative journalist looks like, in movies and pop culture, is about this really testosterone-filled dude screaming, "Give me what you got!" I didn't see myself as someone who would be good at or comfortable with that. — Sarah Stillman

Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. — Amy Goodman

I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted. — Colum McCann

Leggett feels that to be excitingly right in general is better than to be dully accurate in particular. That is why he is such an effective journalist. — Gore Vidal

I used to think the most important thing for a reporter was to be where the news is and be the first to know. Now I feel a reporter should be able to effect change. Your reporting should move people and motivate people to change the world. Maybe this is too idealistic. Young people who want to be journalists must, first, study and, second, recognize that they should never be the heroes of the story..A journalist must be curious, and must be humble.
Zhou Yijun — Judy Polumbaum

I wasn't the kind of kid like Spielberg or Lucas who knew to go to film school. I didn't know at 12 what I was going to do; it took me until I was about 23. I studied journalism in college, but after school, I got a job in public television and I never worked as a journalist for one moment. — Nancy Meyers

If feels good to live after death. It feels good to not be dead. It feels so good to find myself alive and flying home. The music plays in my ears and I float further and further away from war. Fucking Baghdad. — Michael Hastings

I knew I had to be a journalist because I'm deeply curious about the world. — Katie Couric

I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry. — P. J. O'Rourke

I'm a journalist, I run to the fire, that's what we do. — Shepard Smith

I was so shy. I used to cross the street so I wouldn't even have to talk to my relatives, much less strangers. That's not shy, that's wise. But I found that that when you had a journalist's notebook in your hand it wasn't really you, you see. — Geraldine Brooks

As a journalist I'm asked whether I make things up. As a novelist I'm accused of telling the truth. — Lennox Morrison