Quotes & Sayings About Reporters

In the 1970s, 'The Boys on the Bus' exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later, an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus - and left Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust. — Michelle Malkin

Our embedded reporters during the war agreed to guidelines established by the military. — Jim Walton

The story of journalism, on a day-to-day basis, is the story of the interaction of reporters and officials — Michael Schudson

Attempts to thwart or muzzle the media continued as well. At a conservative caucus meeting in Charlottetown in August 2007, journalists assembled in the lobby of the hotel, as they usually do at such gatherings, to talk to caucus members as they passed by. The [Prime Minister's Office] communications team, however, was not prepared to allow it. Taking their cue, or so it appeared, from a police state, they had the RCMP remove the reporters from the hotel. — Lawrence Martin

What the reporters are like! They are mad with excitement at the thought of my approaching demise. Kind Sister Farquhar, my nurse, spends much of her time in throwing them downstairs. But one got in the other day, and asked me if I mind the fact that I must die. — Edith Sitwell

Captain," she growled, "you are the biggest pain in the ass I've ever worked with, and I'm a former Marine who joined the damned NYPD. Do you have any idea how many assholes you meet between those two groups?" Eric just looked back at her with his head cocked to one side, silent for a long moment before he chose to speak. "Lyss, until you've dealt with politicians and reporters, you don't know the meaning of the word. — Evan Currie

He loved his job, which allowed time to do it without comparing his performance to others'. He loved the economics of death: hastening a person's passage into the afterlife not only provided him with a good living: it gave work to coroners, beat cops, detectives, crime scene technicians, the people who made fingerprint powder and luminal and other sundry chemicals and devices - not to mention firearm, ammunition, coffin, and tissue manufacturers - obituary writers, crime reporters, novelists. — Robert Liparulo

There's something retro about your persona. It's like the pre-World War II generation of reporters - those unpretentious, working-class guys who hung around saloons and used rough language. Now they've all been replaced with these effete Ivy League elitists who swarm over the current media. Nerds - utterly dull and insipid. — Camille Paglia

In fact, Clinton feels others' pain to the point that he not infrequently openly weeps for them, and his teary response is so infectious that it can trigger tears in others. This creates the opportunity for powerful political theater, all the more powerful because it is genuinely felt. Leopoulos was with Clinton in New Hampshire, and recalled how Clinton's empathy routinely triggered an epidemic of tears. "He had to hear everyone's story. Some of the people were crying, and had terribly sad stories. Clinton started crying, too, and then we were all crying." Stephanopoulos recalled one such encounter during the New Hampshire primary: "When Mary Annie Davis confessed tearfully that she had to choose each month between buying food or medicine, he knelt down, took her hand, and comforted her with a hug. Even the hardest bitten reporters in the room were wiping tears from their eyes."27 — John Gartner

Reporters thrive on the world's misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity. — Russell Baker

For whatever reason, I tend to get reporters who are maybe in the middle of intense therapy, and they turn what's supposed to be a professional interview into therapy for themselves. — Douglas Coupland

It's the tabloids, with their intense commercial need to get scoops to bring in readers, that run a regime of fear, where reporters are bullied, shouted at. That's where things go wrong. — Nick Davies

The AP has only so many reporters, and CNN only has so many cameras, but we've got a world full of people with digital cameras and Internet access. — Howard Rheingold

Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers, always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and firstly, the dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of his pants, coat, necktie and vest - and worse still, the shape of his boots. This seems to me a great omission. — Fanny Fern

I much preferred the peaceful life on the road, where I didn't have to ask embarrassing questions and do all the things real reporters have to do. — Charles Kuralt

You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter, — John Oliver

My wife and I have just returned from Belgium where, courtesy of the hotel TV, we acquired a new perspective on the Iraq war. The difference between BBC, ITV and CNN on the one hand and the channels from Belgium, Germany and France on the other was stark and disturbing. The 'coalition' output, which strongly influences public opinion in Britain, comprises reports from 'embedded' reporters telling us about the mud and dust, press conferences by generals describing the tip of the iceberg they wanted us to see and studio debates among armchair pundits. — David Walker

I think my wife ... is sure of my loyalty ... She knows how hard I work. She knows how tired I am every night. She knows I have fifty or sixty reporters watching me day and night. — Jimmy Carter

The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that. — William Greider

Reporters ... most were carrion who fed on human tragedy. — JoAnn Ross

Wherever Mantle went in the great metropolis - Danny's Hideaway, the Latin Quarter, the '21' Club, the Stork Club, El Morocco, Toots Shor's - his preferred drink was waiting when he walked through the door. Reporters waited at his locker for monosyllabic bons mots. Boys clustered by the players' gate, hoping to touch him. — Jane Leavy

Leopold, one of the reporters who broke the Enron story, is now breaking his own story: how he got addicted to cocaine, committed grand theft, cleaned himself up and found happiness as a 'news junkie.' This scrappy memoir ... might become required reading for aspiring journalists. — Publishers Weekly

There has always been tension between reporters and the administration, particularly when it comes to war in the modern era. You can go to Kennedy or Johnson and see that they weren't happy with David Halberstam or Morley Safer. — Lowell Bergman

The good reporters of that era, those who were well educated and who were enlightened themselves and worked for enlightened organizations, liked the Kennedys and were for the same things the Kennedys were for. In addition, the particular nature of the President's personal style, his ease and confidence with reporters, his considerable skill in utilizing television, and the terrible manner in which he was killed had created a remarkable myth about him. The fact that a number of men in his Cabinet were skillful writers themselves and that in the profound sadness after his murder they wrote their own eloquent (and on occasion self-serving) versions of his presidency had strengthened that myth. — David Halberstam

Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, each of us bears some private responsibility for the public's sense of truth. If we are serious about seeking the facts, we can each make a small revolution in the way the internet works. If you are verifying information for yourself, you will not send on fake news to others. If you choose to follow reporters whom you have reason to trust, you can also transmit what they have learned to others. If you retweet only the work of humans who have followed journalistic protocols, you are less likely to debase your brain interacting with bots and trolls. We — Timothy Snyder

The Bush administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.' — Al Gore

Television reporters aren't really called reporters. They are called researchers. And that's really all they are. — Tom Wolfe

Being a good writer doesn't make you a good reporter, it takes hustle. — David

Our car would've burned up too, but Michael, who is only twelve, got in it and backed it away. I climbed in with him and noticed some of my school books in the car, so I took them out and threw them in the fire. I figured it would save me from doing a lot of homework, but unfortunately under the headline in the paper the next day that said HARPER'S MALT SHOP BURNS TO THE GROUND IN TRAGIC FIRE it also said that seen throwing her school books into the fire was little Daisy Fay Harper. Rat's foot! No wonder Hollywood stars hate reporters, and after all that some busybody do-gooder has already bought me a new set of books. — Fannie Flagg

My first big gig was as a correspondent on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show.' My job was to parody TV reporters and political pundits. As a result, I was often invited onto cable news shows as comic relief. — Beth Littleford

All our reporters and editors now work seamlessly in print and online. This integration has transformed the way we work. I believe this is vital to the success and growth of newspapers. — Lionel Barber

I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. — Barry Goldwater

Where are the reporters of yesteryear?' he muttered, 'the nail biting, acerbic, alcoholic nighthawk bastards who truly knew how to write? — Annie Proulx

If it were not for the reporters, I would tell you the truth. — Chester A. Arthur

The only people who say worse things about politicians that reporters do are other politicians. — Andy Rooney

In the case of Obamacare, leading members of the intellectual class produced the appropriately rigged studies to promote the racket. Then members of the Obama administration and liberal Democrats in Congress took up these studies as an irrefutable demonstration of the wonders of Obamacare. Finally anchorpeople and reporters lined up to amplify the falsehoods and complete the sale to the American people. Despite all this, the American people remained unconvinced. Even so, the con men generated enough support that Democratic legislators, on a straight-party vote, got Obamacare through. — Dinesh D'Souza

My guess is more reporters probably vote Democrat than Republican - just because I think reporters are smart. — Jerry Springer

There is a commotion as the reporters vie for Eric's sound bite. Gradually, the crowd falls back to allow Emma Wasserstein passage. She shakes Eric's hand, and Chris's, and then leans forward to give Eric's briefcase back to him. But as she does, she comes close enough to whisper to me. "Mr. Hopkins," she says, a truth meant only for me, "I would have done it, too. — Jodi Picoult

Deep Throat stamped his foot. 'A conspiracy like this ... a conspiracy investigation ... the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone's neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished - they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, the everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I'm sure smart reporters must, too. You've put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive - editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.'
Woodward swallowed hard. He deserved the lecture.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources. — Edward L. Bernays

I always warn aspiring reporters to observe three basic rules: 1. Never trust an editor. 2. Never trust an editor. 3. Never trust an editor. — Edna Buchanan

So street-level FBI agents turned secrets into information, and senior FBI leaders brought that information to reporters, to prosecutors, to federal grand juries, and into the public realm. That was the beginning of the end of Richard Nixon's presidency. Without the FBI, the reporters would have been lost. — Tim Weiner

Reporters used to ask me the same inane questions year-in and year-out, city-to-city, and it would drive me crazy. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Reporters treat religion as beneath mention, as personally distasteful, or as a clear and present threat to the American way of life. — Robert Bork

The reporters who came to the press conference in the
office of the John Galt Line were young men who had
been trained to think that their job consisted of
concealing from the world the nature of its events.
It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some
public figure who made utterances about the public good,
in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning.
It was their daily job to sling words together in any
combination they pleased, so long as the words did not
fall into a sequence saying something specific.
They could not understand the interview now being
given to them. — Ayn Rand

When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat, and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies. — Charles Kuralt

When words I uttered, believing them to be true, were exposed as false, I was constrained by my duties and loyalty to the President and unable to comment. But I promised reporters and the public that I would someday tell the whole story of what I knew. — Scott McClellan

Lexicographers are language reporters. — Erin McKean

Nixon under pressure turned only to reporters from publications already favorable to him; Kennedy, in trouble, turned to those most critical and dubious of him, and if anything tended to take those already for him a bit for granted. — David Halberstam

It was always hard work to push through a crowed of reporters with the scent of blood in their nostrils. You might not think so, since on camera they appear to be brain-damaged wimps with severe eating disorders. But put them at a police barricade and a miraculous thing happens ... The strength comes from some mysterious place-and somehow, when there is gore on the ground, these anorexic creatures can push their way through anything. Without mussing their hair, too. — Jeff Lindsay

I was the only woman fooling around with a camera in the streets and all the reporters laughed at me. So I became a fighter. — Lola Alvarez Bravo

The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about ... ?" — Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm not gonna name names, but sometimes when reporters are talking, it gets a little boring because I don't have any jokes to tell because the questions are so serious. — Quvenzhane Wallis

He's painted himself into a corner and a thousand lazy reporters and ever-so-sincere politicians had rendered the only word that he could use comically melodramatic. 'I think ... Johannes Cabal ... is evil. — Jonathan L. Howard

It sometimes takes a while for executives to figure out that the reporters they think of as little bugs to be squashed or spun can be more powerful than they are. — Jonathan Alter

There is no such thing as 'separation of church and state.' Reporters continue to promote this fallacy and scare Christians out of standing up for their beliefs. — Ken Ham

What's happening to movie critics is no different from what has been meted out to book, dance, theater, and fine-arts reviewers and reporters in the cultural deforestation that has driven refugees into the diffuse clatter of the Internet and Twitter, where some adapt and thrive - such as Roger Ebert - while others disappear without a twinkle. — James Wolcott

Bill Clinton also benefited from a friendly press corps. With their baby boomer background, more liberal views, and Ivy League lawyer credentials, the Clintons fit the mold of many of the baby boomer reporters. In time, of course, the press would turn on Clinton. In the 1992 campaign, however, it seemed to me that some news outlets allowed their zeal for change to undermine their high standards of journalistic objectivity. (The pattern would later repeat with another exciting candidate promising change, Barack Obama.) — George W. Bush

There was an unspoken understanding that when a reporter chased a story, hunches and theories became airborne and other reporters could catch them like a cold. — Marisha Pessl

Riveted by these events, reporters gave little thought to the hearings taking place that afternoon in Room 424 of the Senate Office Building, where a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee sat to consider a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If passed, it would have declared, "This Nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of nations through whom are bestowed the blessings of Almighty God."1 The campaign — Kevin M. Kruse

Photojournalist? With a few exceptions, those of us working as photojournalists might now more appropriately call ourselves illustrators. For, unlike real reporters, whose job it is to document what's going down, most of us go out in the world expecting to give form to the magazine, or to newspaper editor's ideas, using what's become over the years a pretty standardized visual language. So we search for what is instantly recognizable, supportive of the text, easiest to digest, or most marketable - more mundane realities be damned. — Eugene Richards

Government reporters may cover City Hall. Education reporters may write about schools and school boards. Science writers may report on asteroids one day, HIV vaccine experiments the next, sonar technology the next, a universe without boundaries. — Deborah Blum

Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there. — William Safire

I believe that answers your questions," Sheriff Heath said, returning to his seat.
A brawny Italian man in the back of the room said, "No, sir, I didn't get an answer to my question about marriage proposals."
I jumped up before Sheriff Heath could. These reporters needed to see that I could speak for myself. "The presence or absence of suitors in the lives of the Kopp sisters has no bearing on this matter," I told them, "and I see no men here today who would stand a chance with any one of us. — Amy Stewart

A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are. — James Fallows

President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage. — Ben Shapiro

I would turn the question around to people, especially those reporters who wrote some of those articles. Are you advocating our daughters shouldn't learn self-defense? Because that's what was taught at that rally. — Matt Shea

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty. — Joey Skaggs

Media reporters have pointed out that the paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers. — Fareed Zakaria

Do you know what White House correspondents call actors who pose as reporters? Anchors. — Jay Leno

I'm always having to get rid of reporters. — Ada Yonath

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

I was sent there by the Free Congress Committee, headed by Paul Weyrich. Fred Smith and I were sent down as observers, with reporters' credentials, so we could witness the events. — Dixie Lee Ray

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic. — John Stossel

The more boring a newspaper is, the more it is respected. The most respected newspaper in the United States is The New York Times, which has thousands of reporters constantly producing enormous front-page stories about bauxite ... The [New York] Post would write about bauxite only if famous celebrites were arrested for snorting it in an exclusive Manhattan nightclub. — Dave Barry

If you talk about an issue, what comes back is a description of what you're wearing. Reporters only want to know how tall you are and if your teeth are capped. — Robert Redford

News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center. — Walter Cronkite

Reporters trade in pain. It sells papers. Everyone knows that. — Jonathan Maberry

I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

I totally alienated some reporters as I retreated. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' — Ari Shapiro

The owners and top managers of most news media organizations tend to be conservative and Republican. This is hardly surprising. The shareholders and executives of multi-billion-dollar corporations are not very interested in undermining the free enterprise system, for example, income from offended advertisers. These owners and managers ultimately decide which reporters, newscasters, and editors to hire or fire, promote or discourage. Journalists who want to get a head, therefore, may have to come to terms with the policies of the people who own and run media businesses. — Edward S. Greenberg

The Supreme Court has said that America is a Christian nation. But to make such a statement today causes reporters, newsmen, and many politicians to go ballistic. — D. James Kennedy

Told reporters Wednesday he can support a pathway to citizenship for some of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and that he actually prefers it to a plan that would create a second-class of citizens through alternative programs. — Darrell Issa

People thought I was cocky because I didn't talk much. When I first turned pro, reporters asked me who was going to win. I'd say, 'I am' because it was the easier than giving some long, drawn-out answer. — Ken Venturi

At the MTV Movie Awards, I was wearing a dress, and that red carpet is outside, and Victoria Justice was going before me on the red carpet. Apparently she's like the biggest star in the world, so everybody was just like 'Victoria! Victoria!' so I am just standing there, and a couple of reporters were just like 'Hello.' And then my skirt just flies up, and I was like 'Take that, Victoria Justice!' — Molly Tarlov

There aren't enough good journalists. There are too many who really weren't groomed to be reporters and, as a result, some of the reporting is shallow. — Will McDonough

Read like a detective and write like a conscientious investigative reporter. — David Coleman

It was when reporters became journalists and when objectivity gave way to searching for truth, that an aura of distrust and fear arose around the New Journalist. — Georgie Anne Geyer

Materialism has defeated feminism as well. In a sign of the times, Gloria Steinem was on the picket line when the first American DeBeers store opened on Fifth Avenue in June 2005, protesting the evictions of Bushmen in Botswana to make room for diamond miners and the charges that the company dealt in "blood diamonds" used to finance civil wars in Africa.
Her presence meant nothing to young Hollywood beauties who are pleased to shill for the diamond industry in magazine layouts and personal appearances.
As Steinem stood outside, Lindsay Lohan was inside the party, gushing over the possibility that she could get to wear one of the big rocks.
Asked by reporters about the Bushmen controversy, she shrugged it off: "I don't get involved in any drama. — Maureen Dowd

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

So Dan Miller decided to roast a pig. The idea took hold of him after another eruption on August 7. He would roast a pig in the steaming volcano fields at the base of St. Helens. Being a scientist meant that he would do it in a methodical fashion: notes would be kept and he would document everything. The operation needed a cover name because reporters and others were monitoring all radio communication around the volcano, so he called it the 'FPP temperature experiment'. FPP stood for Front Page Palmer, a name the scientists had given a local geology professor who had irritated the Survey geologists by grandstanding for the press. Miller would roast a pig and Palmer at the same time. — Dick Thompson

That first week, I also went to Washington. That was really tough. I sympathize with those Washington figures who have to face 40 Times Washington bureau reporters. They ask hard questions and they're relentless. And they were quite suspicious and quite dubious about me. — Daniel Okrent

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Seeking of the truth should be not only part of the Justice Department and part of our judicial system, but also should be ... a goal of reporters today. — John Ensign

Oh my lord. It can't be. But it most certainly was. What in the heck is he doing here? Why in the hell was the star wide receiver of the Georgia Bulldogs at his mother's funeral? The man that made history by coming out and telling the world he was bisexual two years ago. He was a hero, and he looked the part. He stood tall, at least 6'2", or 6'3". His wavy, dirty blond hair was longer on top than the cropped hair on the sides. Dark shades covered what he knew were magnetic, emerald-green eyes. His broad shoulders made his suit hang beautifully on his large body. Curtis' mouth watered at the thought of all those muscles. He'd gotten glimpses of the man's chest and biceps when the reporters and cameramen of ESPN would go in the locker room to listen to the coach congratulate his team on a win. There he was right there, just twenty feet away from him. — A.E. Via

Truth is the hardest substance in the world to pin down. But the one certainty is the awesome penalty exacted sooner or later from a society whose reporters stop trying. — Flora Lewis

Dean Owen did what a lot of reporters seem to have forgotten how to do these days, he asked the people who were there that awful day what they saw and how they felt. This is a must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of what happened on the weekend that America lost its innocence. A terrific read. — Bob Schieffer

When my father, Ronald Reagan, was running for president in 1980, my mother, Nancy, traveled with him on the campaign trail, but she did not give speeches or even many interviews. She never stood in front of a group of reporters and expounded on her views and opinions. — Patti Davis

We are the recorders and reporters of facts - not the judges of the behaviors we describe. — Alfred Kinsey