The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.

All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at 'The Washington Post,' 'The New York Times,' and the three original TV networks.

Even at the end of a presidential election campaign, we have no way to know what Mitt Romney really believes.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

If you are a great news organization, you can't have the best obtainable version of the truth if your vision and your scale is reduced to a fraction of its former self.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

John Paul was the first modern pope to grow up in a secular culture: He attended public schools, danced with girls - indeed, as a teenager he had a crush on a beautiful Jewish girl who fled his hometown just ahead of the arrival of the Germans.

Public policy in the twentieth century was about protecting and expanding the social compact, based on recognition that effective government at the federal level provides rules and services and safety measures that contribute to a better society.

Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.

The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; it's broken. One of our three branches of government is broken.

The great thing about Watergate is, is that the system worked. The American system worked. The press did its job. We did what we were supposed to do.

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism.

The most important ethical issues and the most difficult ones are the human ones because a reporter has enormous power to hurt people.

There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.

There's no way to know the motives of another person totally, even a person that you know very well.

For the first time the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms even our cultural ideal.

The failures of the press have contributed immensely to the emergence of a talk-show nation, in which public discourse is reduced to ranting and raving and posturing.

Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.

Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

In the plays - that's where I go crazy. But my prose has a much lighter touch; it's not trying to thrill with language, just to be more truthful. I'm not concerned with the accuracy of anything. We don't get to the truth of anything with facts.

If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction.

There is a huge difference between journalism and advertising. Journalism aspires to truth. Advertising is regulated for truth. I'll put the accuracy of the average ad in this country up against the average news story any time.

Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

I think that's because believable action is based on authenticity, and accuracy is very important to me. I always spend time researching my novels, exploring the customs and attitudes of the county I'm using for their setting.

Sensorial perception, for example, certainly occurs with greater or less accuracy according to the degree of interest; it is constantly given other directions by the change of external stimuli and by ideas.

Employ every economy consistent with thoroughness, accuracy and reliability.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.

The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

Because of recent improvements in the accuracy of theoretical predictions based on large scale ab initio quantum mechanical calculations, meaningful comparisons between theoretical and experimental findings have become possible.

We measure very carefully what the positives are and I think it is less than one tenth of one percent, so we are very pleased with the accuracy of our biometric checks and we continue to monitor that.

A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.

In some instances, the accuracy of past-life memories can be objectively verified, sometimes with remarkable detail.

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.

I'm convinced you can combine this with reporting integrity and accuracy.

We know something of the history of the spread of Christianity, but much passed from recorded memory and much was transmitted by tradition whose accuracy has been repeatedly questioned.

Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction.

Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.