Great journalism quotes 2
January 14th 2009 06:06
Quotes about journalism and newspapers fall generally into two categories. The first sort comprises the many fine words which have collectively described the aims and ambitions of newspapers, and the honour, integrity and, at times, courage, of the men and women who work to bring those newspapers to you. These quotes are numerous and occasionally stirring. Generally, however, they are as dull as a broadsheet editorial on taxation policy.
The other sort are much more fun. Almost every one of the great wits in history has had something to say about journalism, and rarely was it a nice thing. Journalism is fun to make fun of it. Forget the honour and integrity. This second category of journalism quotes comprises almost entirely jibes at the Fourth Estate.
As an old newspaper journalist, I could resent that. Instead, I got a lot of laughs from the following.
Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to.
Hannen Swaffer (1879-1962), Tom Driberg Swaff (1974)
Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.
Frank Zappa (1940-93), Linda Botts Loose Talk (1980)
I'm just waiting for the paper coming. Not that there's much in it. The correspondence I initiated on the length of the Archbishop of Canterbury's hair seems to have gone off the boil.
Alan Bennett (1934- ), Talking Heads (1988)
A good newspaper is never nearly good enough but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.
Garrison Keillor (1942-), That Old 'Picayune-Moon (Harper's, September, 1990)
Anonymous sources are to journalism what silicon enhancements are to the feminine figure; they look impressive to the gullible, but something doesn't feel right.
Larry King (1933- ), speaking in London, 2005
I keep reading between the lies.
Goodman Ace (1899-1982)
It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.
G K Chesterton (1874-1936) (attrib)
When I say 'start' let's have five seconds of silence. (Pause). That's pretty good. That gives something for the news media to quote with absolute accuracy.
Bobby Knight (1940- ) Indiana basketball coach (1982)
I'm the Clergyman who's never been to London,
I'm the Clergyman who's never been to Town.
An enterprising journalist approached me
And every word I said, he jotted down.
I had to face a battery of cameras
And hold an extra service in the snow,
And all because I've never been to London,
And haven't got the least desire to go.
Noël Coward (1899-1973), Words and Music (1932)
I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code pf 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 (1947- ) Parliament of Whores (1991)
Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations, www.schindler.org; image: Zoltan Glass: A Journalist writing in his BMW (Paris 1934)
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