A Quote by Edward Jay Epstein
The problem of journalism is simple. Journalists are rarely in a position to establish the truth of an issue themselves, since they didn't' witness it personally. They are entirely dependent on self-interested sources to supply their facts. Every part of the news-making process is defined by this relationship; everything is colored by this reality.
Related Quotes
Media bias in editorials and columns is one thing. Media fraud in reporting 'facts' in news stories is something else. ...The issue is not what various journalists or news organizations' editorial views are. The issue is the transformation of news reporting into ideological spin, along with self-serving taboos and outright fraud.
I think everybody's talking about like facts and truth and you know like that 'We're here to fact check' and all of that, that's the base material of journalism. You cannot have journalism without facts and truth. But if facts and truth were what actually you know sort of moved people's lives and moved their decision-making like the election would have had a different outcome.
If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young.
Editorials are, obviously, pieces of opinion journalism. They are not intended to be dispassionate, balanced accountings of a news situation or issue. They present a strong and strongly argued position and do not necessarily present or even take into account the opposing position.
Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view. Facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around. Facts are living turned inside out.
When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.
Also, and this may sound naïve, but since my early days in journalism, I've felt that getting as close as possible to truth, revealing the reality of a situation in detail, has its own persuasive power. This allows readers to look at the facts and the perspectives presented and draw informed conclusions.
I don't have any problem with a reporter or a news person who says the President is uninformed on this issue or that issue. I don't think any of us would challenge that. I do have a problem with the singular focus on this, as if that's the only standard by which we ought to judge a president. What we learned in the last administration was how little having an encyclopedic grasp of all the facts has to do with governing.
Formerly well-respected news organizations and experienced national journalists are making the sorts of mistakes that aren't tolerated in journalism schools. When their mistakes are corrected at all, it's with little seeming regret.
I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.
The poets are wrong of course […] But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.
I've got a variety of different sources of news that I follow and every day there's going to be different headlines, different stories spun different ways and different sources that they're going to cite as their facts.
The country is polarized. And I think part of it - it is not just social media. We get our facts from different places. People self-select with so many different cable channels and so many sources. I think that is a huge problem.
Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study one self in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself - to be is to be related.
Journalism should be truthful and entertaining. You know, with news and important facts you can entertain people too. Have a little humor. Life isn't all that deadly all the time, but while you're having fun, tell the truth. If every word of a column is deadly serious, I can't read it. It makes me throw up.
And journalism itself has changed. News organizations and some journalists have transformed from their traditional role as watchdogs of power into institutions of power themselves with an ability, indeed, a susceptibility, to abuse that power.
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