People ask whether I put the politics first, journalism first or the comedy first; it doesn't really matter. I'm just playing with the cards that I have been dealt because I really love doing what I do.
I have a journalism degree, but I'd rather be the person who is being written about rather than the person who is writing.
Many times, when you do what I do or work in journalism in general, people try to not explicitly present their opinions on topics.
You find the most important thing that really grabs you, and put it right up top. Don't bury the lead. Put it at the top. Best thing to do. Never go wrong that way. It's an immutable law of journalism. It just always works.
The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.
I just love when the Internet is wrong. It's the only thing that will save journalism.
A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.
Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.
Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.
I understand the difference between journalism and scholarship that comes 20 years later.
In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.
I think journalism is important.
If the next thing I do is not necessarily filling the role of 'the future of journalism,' it'll probably be whatever is making me happiest, and that's enough for me.
I think journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.
I want to institutionalise and automate chequebook journalism.
Seymour Hersh is one of the giants of investigative journalism.
I don't think there's any connection between my journalism career and my film career. They are two totally different mediums and very different skills.
Before journalism, I had worked doing medical aid work in conflict zones. Then, as a journalist, I had written about hospitals in war zones.
Some in journalism consider themselves apart from and to some extent above the people they purport to serve.
I've always been a big consumer of American journalism over the years and had an interest in the history of it and of the press in America; how it has changed.
I don't think Fox News or Rush Limbaugh need Clinton it turns out. I think there's a hunger out there for - whether it's on the left or right - a more lively and provocative type of political journalism. I think Salon and Fox on the other side have both benefited from that.
I've taught a college journalism course at two universities where my students taught me more than I did them about how political news is consumed.
Freedom of the press is not questioned when investigative journalism unearths scandals, But that does not mean that every classified state document should be made available to journalists.
In the '50s and '60s, journalism wasn't a profession. It wasn't something you went to college for - it was really more of a trade. You had a lot of guys who came up working in newspapers at the copy desk, or delivery boys, and then they would somehow become reporters afterward and learn on the job.
A lot of people, myself included, are excited about blogging and stuff like that, citizen journalism, but I do remind people that no matter how excited we are, there's no substitute for professional writing, no substitute for professional editing, and no substitute for professional fact-checking.
Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable.
If anyone was talking about journalism in the '50s - it was Edward R.Murrow.
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.
I can't think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there's been a reaction, there's been no journalism. It's cause and effect.
I don't think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It's lonely out here.
While the web is very much the first draft of history, a rough-cut, it still has to be good journalism, well-sourced, reliable. Clearly, the printed form is going to have more effort put into it, going to be more reflective and relevant.
The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That's the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.
I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism.
There's a certain elitism that has crept into the attitudes of some in journalism, and it played out perfectly over the issue of these little American flag lapel pins.
Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.
