Favorite Quotes About Journalism and Journalists

Sayings By Napoleon, Gandhi, Gore Vidal, Joseph Pulitzer and More

Mar 18, 2009

A humorous collection of quotations and puns about journalists, their craft and the media in the words of politicians, writers, and other personalities.

If prevailing opinions are anything to go by, British humorist Nicolas Bentley must have spoken volumes of truth when he said that "No news is good news. No journalists is even better."

Let's have a look at a couple dozen oft-mentioned quotations about journalism and the press, and see how they fare in the words of several well known (or not so well known) personalities:

Quotes About Journalism and the Press

"A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not." – Henry Fielding

"A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction." – Graham Greene

"I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers." – Mahatma Gandhi

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half." – Gore Vidal

"I don't care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right." – George M. Cohan

"News is like food: it is the cooking and serving that makes it acceptable, not the material itself." – Rose Macaulay

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." – Frank Lloyd Wright

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is just putting on its shoes." – Mark Twain

"If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM." – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson

"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust." – Samuel Butler

"A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." – Napoleon Bonaparte

"Journalism consists largely in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive." – G. K. Chesterton

"When there is good news, and it is news, we do report it, but usually news is a record of human failure. Those wanting to celebrate human accomplishment are, as someone said, advised to go to the sports section." – Linda Ellerbee

"In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right." – Ellen Goodman

"Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge." – Erwin Knoll

Is It Really That Bad?

By all means no, it certainly isn't! Let journalists stick to Joseph Pulitzer's recipe for good reporting, and all such poisonous remarks will be just malicious grumbling: "Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light."

The Bottom Line

As Henry Anatole Grunwald put it, "Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air."

The copyright of the article Favorite Quotes About Journalism and Journalists in Newspaper Journalism is owned by Maddalena Delli. Permission to republish Favorite Quotes About Journalism and Journalists in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.