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	JOURNALISM . . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: BLOGGING CENSORSHIP FOX NEWS FREE PRESS MEDIA (THE), MEDIA BIAS NEW YORK TIMES NEWS, NEWSPAPERS PRESS (THE) PUBLISHING REPORTERS TABLOIDS TELEVISION --- The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state. --John Adams (1735—1826) First VP and second President of the United States. In the Massachusetts Bill of Rights [1780]. Thanks to my solid academic training, today I can write hundreds of words on virtually any topic without possessing a shred of information, which is how I got a good job in journalism. --Dave Barry (1947— ) American humorist. Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it *will* be true. --Arnold Bennett (1867—1931) English novelist. _The Title_ [1918] When it comes to arrogance, power, and lack of accountability, journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good. --Steven Brill, epigraph for Bernard Goldberg, _Bias_ Journalism largely consists in saying 'Lord Jones Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874—1936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. _The Wisdom of Father Brown_ "The Purple Wig" [1914] The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master. --James Fenimore Cooper (1789—1851) American novelist. _The American Democrat_ [1838] When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog, that is news. --Charles A(nderson) Dana (1819—1897) American journalist who became a national figure as editor of the New York "Sun." "What is News?" in "Sun" [1882] The press is ferocious. It forgives nothing, it only hunts for mistakes. . . In my position anyone sane would have left a long time ago. (Contrasting British and foreign press reporting.) --Diana, Princess of Wales (1961—1997) Former wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. In "Le Monde" [27 August 1997]. [Greener's Law:] Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. --William I. Greener Jr. (b. 1925) American publicist. Quoted in "Wall Street Journal" [28 September 1978]. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war. --William Randolph Hearst (1863—1951) American newspaper publisher. In a cable to Frederic Remington, "New York Journal" in Havana, Cuba, [March 1898]. Attributed, but denied by Hearst and never confirmed by Remington. - Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. In a letter to John Norvell [11 June 1807]. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. In a letter to Charles Yancey [6 January 1816]. I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. In a letter to Nathaniel Macon [12 January 1819]. yet note: [The press is] the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. In a letter to A. Coray [31 October 1823]. During the course of this administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levied against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and sap its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation; but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public indignation. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. In his second Inaugural Address. - Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt at all that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963]. President of the U.S. [1961-1963]; "Conversations with President Kennedy" [17 December 1962], in _Public Papers_ [1962]. The press is a midden heap, full of bits and pieces of things, some of them true, and maybe valuable, but all of them fragments from which the citizen must construct his own distorted portrait of reality. I object to the idea that somehow the press, the media, are going to provide the people with all the answers. --Lewis H. Lapham (1935— ) American syndicated newspaper columnist and author. "Can the Press tell the Truth?" in "Harpers" [January 1985] People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. --A. J. Liebling (1904—1963) American syndicated newspaper columnist, author, and staff writer for the New Yorker from 1935 until his death in 1963. During World War II, he served as a correspondent for the magazine in France, England, and North Africa. There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil. --Walter Lippmann (1889—1974) American journalist. "Journalism and the Higher Law" in _Liberty and the News_ [1920] The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm. --Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859) English politician and historian. "Hallam's Constitutional History" [1828] Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. --Janet Malcolm (1934— ) American writer and journalist. _The Journalist and the Murderer_, pt. I [1990] The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. --George Mason (1725—1792) American statesman, wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, from where the quote originates. [12 June 1776]. Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. --Edward R. Murrow [Egbert Roscoe Murrow] (1908—1965) American broadcaster and journalist. Journalist: 'Hey Joe [Namath],' How did you do in Basket Weaving at [the University of] Alabama?' Namath: 'I flunked out, I switched to something easier — journalism.' - There isn't another writer that has a worse reputation for inaccuracy, indecency, for recklessness, for malice, for hatred, for viciousness, for besmirching people's characters and destroying them. --Louis Nizer (1902—1994) English-born American lawyer. (On Westbrook Pegler, in his summation to the jury at Pegler's trial for libel against Quentin Reynolds, 1953, quoted in Oliver Pilat _Pegler: Angry Man of the Press_ [1963] - GBAQ.) & see: My hates have always occupied my mind much more actively and have given greater spiritual satisfactions than my friendships. . . .The wish to favor a friend is not as active as the instinct to annoy some person or institution I detest. --Westbrook Pegler (1884—1969) American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and war correspondent. (In his column "Fair Enough" quoted ibid. - All the news that's fit to print. --Adolph S. Ochs (1858—1935) Publisher of The New York Times. Motto of the newspaper [1896]. Hot lead can be almost as effective coming from a linotype as from a firearm. --John O'Hara (1905—1970) American novelist and short-story writer. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will produce in time a people as base as itself. --Joseph Pulitzer (1847—1911) Hungarian-born American newpaper publisher. Inscribed on the gateway to the Columbia School of Journalism in New York City. I write from the worm's-eye point of view. --Ernie Pyle (1900—1945) American journalist, war correspondent. and winner of a 1944 Pulitzer. _Here is Your War_ [1943] It is very difficult to have a free, fair, and honest press anywhere in the world. . . . As a rule, papers are largely supported by advertising, and that immediately gives the advertisers a certain hold over the medium which they use. --Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962) American human rights activist, diplomat, and wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. _If You Ask Me_ [1946] The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensible to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck. --Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919) American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909]. Speech in Washington [14 April 1906]. Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860) German philosopher. "On Some Forms of Literature" Comment is free, but facts are sacred. --C.P. Scott (1846—1932) British journalist. In "Manchester Guardian" [5 May 1921]. An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. --Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965) American Democratic politician. Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins. --Tom Stoppard [Tomas Straussler] (1937— ) Czech-born British playwright. "Night and Day" (1978) In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates. --Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859) French historian and politician. _Democracy in America_ [1835] - There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "License of the Press" [1873] There are only two forces that can carry light to all corners of the globe — the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press.] --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. In a speech at the annual dinner of the Associated Press, New York City [18 September 1906]. - Woman, wampum, and wrongdoing are always news. --Stanley Walker (1898—1962) American journalist. _City Editor_ [1938] - The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. --Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. --Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _Intentions: The Critic as Artist_ [1891] - - You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist, But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to. --Humbert Wolfe (1885—1940) Italian-born British poet, man of letters and civil servant. "Over the Fire" [1930] - Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read. --Frank Zappa (1940—1993) American rock musician and songwriter. In Linda Boots _Loose Talk_ [1980]. - Chat-up Line: I'm a freelance journalist. Would you like a free lance? The Three Rules of Journalism: Make it brief. Make it juicy. Make it up. --anon. Reporter: But what did _you_ think of the play, Mrs Lincoln? --anon. A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe. Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we never reveal our sauce." TOPICAL Fit and Unfit to Print _The Wall Street Journal_ June 30, 2006 'Not everything is fit to print. There is to be regard for at least probable factual accuracy, for danger to innocent lives, for human decencies, and even, if cautiously, for nonpartisan considerations of the national interest." So wrote the great legal scholar, Alexander Bickel, about the duties of the press in his 1975 collection of essays "The Morality of Consent." We like to re-read Bickel to get our Constitutional bearings, and he's been especially useful since the New York Times decided last week to expose a major weapon in the U.S. arsenal against terror financing. President Bush, among others, has since assailed the press for revealing the program, and the Times has responded by wrapping itself in the First Amendment, the public's right to know and even The Wall Street Journal. We published a story on the same subject on the same day, and the Times has since claimed us as its ideological wingman. So allow us to explain what actually happened, putting this episode within the larger context of a newspaper's obligations during wartime. * * * We should make clear that the News and Editorial sections of the Journal are separate, with different editors. The Journal story on Treasury's antiterror methods was a product of the News department, and these columns had no say in the decision to publish. We have reported the story ourselves, however, and the facts are that the Times's decision was notably different from the Journal's. According to Tony Fratto, Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, he first contacted the Times some two months ago. He had heard Times reporters were asking questions about the highly classified program involving Swift, an international banking consortium that has cooperated with the U.S. to follow the money making its way to the likes of al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Mr. Fratto went on to ask the Times not to publish such a story on grounds that it would damage this useful terror-tracking method. Sometime later, Secretary John Snow invited Times Executive Editor Bill Keller to his Treasury office to deliver the same message. Later still, Mr. Fratto says, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, made the same request of Mr. Keller. Democratic Congressman John Murtha and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte also urged the newspaper not to publish the story. The Times decided to publish anyway, letting Mr. Fratto know about its decision a week ago Wednesday. The Times agreed to delay publishing by a day to give Mr. Fratto a chance to bring the appropriate Treasury official home from overseas. Based on his own discussions with Times reporters and editors, Mr. Fratto says he believed "they had about 80% of the story, but they had about 30% of it wrong." So the Administration decided that, in the interest of telling a more complete and accurate story, they would declassify a series of talking points about the program. They discussed those with the Times the next day, June 22. Around the same time, Treasury contacted Journal reporter Glenn Simpson to offer him the same declassified information. Mr. Simpson has been working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift, and it is a common practice in Washington for government officials to disclose a story that is going to become public anyway to more than one reporter. Our guess is that Treasury also felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times, which was pushing a violation-of-privacy angle; on our reading of the two June 23 stories, he did. * * * We recount all this because more than a few commentators have tried to link the Journal and Times at the hip. On the left, the motive is to help shield the Times from political criticism. On the right, the goal is to tar everyone in the "mainstream media." But anyone who understands how publishing decisions are made knows that different newspapers make up their minds differently. Some argue that the Journal should have still declined to run the antiterror story. However, at no point did Treasury officials tell us not to publish the information. And while Journal editors knew the Times was about to publish the story, Treasury officials did not tell our editors they had urged the Times not to publish. What Journal editors did know is that they had senior government officials providing news they didn't mind seeing in print. If this was a "leak," it was entirely authorized. Would the Journal have published the story had we discovered it as the Times did, and had the Administration asked us not to? Speaking for the editorial columns, our answer is probably not. Mr. Keller's argument that the terrorists surely knew about the Swift monitoring is his own leap of faith. The terror financiers might have known the U.S. could track money from the U.S., but they might not have known the U.S. could follow the money from, say, Saudi Arabia. The first thing an al Qaeda financier would have done when the story broke is check if his bank was part of Swift. Just as dubious is the defense in a Times editorial this week that "The Swift story bears no resemblance to security breaches, like disclosure of troop locations, that would clearly compromise the immediate safety of specific individuals." In this asymmetric war against terrorists, intelligence and financial tracking are the equivalent of troop movements. They are America's main weapons. The Times itself said as much in a typically hectoring September 24, 2001, editorial "Finances of Terror": "Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities." Isn't the latter precisely what the Swift operation is? Whether the Journal News department would agree with us in this or other cases, we can't say. We do know, however, that Journal editors have withheld stories at the government's request in the past, notably during the Gulf War when they learned that a European company that had sold defense equipment to Iraq was secretly helping the Pentagon. Readers have to decide for themselves, based on our day-to-day work, whether they think Journal editors are making the correct publishing judgments. * * * Which brings us back to the New York Times. We suspect that the Times has tried to use the Journal as its political heatshield precisely because it knows our editors have more credibility on these matters. As Alexander Bickel wrote, the relationship between government and the press in the free society is an inevitable and essential contest. The government needs a certain amount of secrecy to function, especially on national security, and the press in its watchdog role tries to discover what it can. The government can't expect total secrecy, Bickel writes, "but the game similarly calls on the press to consider the responsibilities that its position implies. Not everything is fit to print." The obligation of the press is to take the government seriously when it makes a request not to publish. Is the motive mainly political? How important are the national security concerns? And how do those concerns balance against the public's right to know? The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it. So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps. Mr. Keller's open letter explaining his decision to expose the Treasury program all but admits that he did so because he doesn't agree with, or believe, the Bush Administration. "Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress," he writes, and "some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight." Since the Treasury story broke, as it happens, no one but Congressman Ed Markey and a few cranks have even objected to the program, much less claimed illegality. Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who in a recent commencement address apologized to the graduates because his generation "had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government. "Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, sorry. It wasn't supposed to be this way," the publisher continued. "You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights," and so on. Forgive us if we conclude that a newspaper led by someone who speaks this way to college seniors has as a major goal not winning the war on terror but obstructing it. * * * In all of this, Mr. Sulzberger and the Times are reminiscent of a publisher from an earlier era, Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. In the 1930s and into World War II, the Tribune was implacable in its opposition to FDR and his conduct of the war. During the war itself, his newspaper also exposed secrets, including one story after the victory at Midway in 1942 that essentially disclosed that the U.S. had broken Japanese codes. The government considered, but decided against, prosecuting McCormick's paper under the Espionage Act of 1917. That was a wise decision, and not only because it would have drawn more attention to the Tribune "scoop." Once a government starts indicting reporters for publishing stories, there will be no drawing any lines against such prosecutions, and we will be well down the road to an Official Secrets Act that will let government dictate coverage. The current political clamor is nonetheless a warning to the press about the path the Times is walking. Already, its partisan demand for a special counsel in the Plame case has led to a reporter going to jail and to defeats in court over protecting sources. Now the politicians are talking about Espionage Act prosecutions. All of which is cause for the rest of us in the media to recognize, heeding Alexander Bickel, that sometimes all the news is not fit to print. end page | IDAHO - IDIOTS | IDLENESS - IMMATURITY | IMMIGRATION & IMMORALITY | IMMORTALITY - IMPOSTORS | IMPRESSIONABLE - INDECISION | INDEPENDENCE - INDIANA | INDIFFERENCE - INDIVIDUALITY | INDOCTRINATION - INFORMATION | INGRATITUDE - INNOVATION | INNUENDO - INSPIRATION | INSULTS - INTENTIONS | INTERESTED(ING) - INTUITION | INVENTIONS - ITCHING | JAIL - JOGGING | JOHNSON (LYNDON) - JOY | JOURNALISM | JUDGE (TO) - JUSTICE | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos |

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