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Journalism Quotes

The page is short, has no flagged entries, and is dominated by Oscar Wilde. John Pilger, Joseph Addison, Thomas Carlyle and W. T. Stead share the rest of the top. Wilde’s three sourced lines are the ones to know. In The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) he says that in America the President reigns for four years and Journalism governs for ever and ever, and that the public has an insatiable curiosity to know everything except what is worth knowing. In The Critic as Artist (1891) he declines to defend modern journalism, which, he says, justifies its own existence by a Darwinian principle.

Random quote on Journalism

Most quoted on journalism:

A Statesman is an easy man,
He tells his lies by rote;
A Journalist makes up his lies,
And takes you by the throat.

William Butler Yeats

The thing is written. It is true.

François Rabelais

The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands

Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'

Robert Fisk The Great War for Civilization (2005)

To quote, without verifiable evidence, "western intelligence sources" is never journalism; it is almost always propaganda. I learned that as a reporter. The cold war drum beat of the BBC and others is leading us to a world war.

John Pilger

Today's serious nonfiction writer is important to society because from a solid background of social sciences, combined with the journalistic skills of a reporter, one moves beyond the reporter function to the front edge of our emerging society.

Betty Friedan

Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.

Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840)

If Julian is to be prosecuted, then there’s a equally good case for the editor and journalists in The Guardian or New York Times, Der Spiegel, El País, La República and all the other organizations involved in this coverage being prosecuted, too.

Ewen MacAskill

We are creating a space behind us that permits a form of journalism which lives up to the name that journalism has always tried to establish for itself. We are creating that space because we are taking on the criticism that comes from robust exposure of powerful groups.

Julian Assange

None of our political writers … take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords and Commons … passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in the community … the Mob.

Henry Fielding

Since there is no such thing as ideological truth, it follows that to the extent a reporter is a liberal reporter or a conservative reporter, or a Democratic or Communist or Republican reporter, he is no reporter at all.

H. L. Mencken

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

Hugo Black

They lied about it! The enemy boils the ocean, cooks the sixth fleet and every man, woman and child within fifty miles of a shoreline - you could expect some coverage. What did they report? Minor soil erosion in the Florida Keys. They boiled the ocean, woman!

Arthur M. Jolly

The editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care,
His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair,
His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head,
His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread.

Will Carleton

Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.

Joseph Addison The Tatler (1711)

Ernest: But what is the difference between Literature and Journalism? Gilbert: Journalism is unreadable and Literature is not read. That is all.

Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist Part I (1891)

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal, — that is they have ceased to be self-centered, have given up their individuality.... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.

William Butler Yeats

The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies — unless one counts journalists.

George Orwell Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward. They ain't annything it don't turn its hand to fr'm explainin' th' docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin' saleratus biskit.

Finley Peter Dunne

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.

Thomas Jefferson

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