News Quotes

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end of network news coverage. Viewers saw the juxtaposition of the embedded correspondents reporting the war as it was actually unfolding and the jaundiced, biased, negative coverage of these same events in the network newsrooms.

Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

One of the reasons why when Elvis dies or the Son of Sam is captured ABC News' ratings go up is because people who don't normally watch news are watching then. The question is, do you want to attract people who don't watch network news or fight over the people who do?

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

We are in the business of gathering the news. We're not in the business of talking about the news.

When we saw our plane on TV as breaking news, it was the most surreal experience. A lot of the women were crying. There was a gentleman who was writing in his journal and crying. Seeing that isn't easy.

NBC News will help define Comcast.

I'm not interested in breaking news. I'm interested in telling the story of what's going on and then trying to figure it out.

The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills.

The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.

I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.

Some of the best news stories start in gossip. Monica Lewinsky certainly was gossip in the beginning. I had heard it months before I printed it.

You know, there are not only - all of the networks, and I mean every television news operation and print and radio and magazines, newspapers, all of them, are remiss in the diversity area. I mean, none of these organizations have reached a level of parity.

I was really lucky to work at CBS news. I was blessed to be able to live my dream in many ways at CBS news.

We're going to try to create some programs that are going to generate viewer interest and appointment viewing. We still will have news on Headline News.

One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.

But by showing us live coverage of every bad thing happening everywhere in the world, cable news makes life seem like it's just an endless string of disasters - when, for most people in most places today, life is fairly good.

I read rip-and-read news, but I wasn't a reporter. I was reading the wire, and the other thing was, I was reading commercials - and I could do a hell of a commercial.

We like to engage in a normal publishing effort, which is to act in a responsible manner and make sure the material is not likely to harm anyone, that it is properly investigated by quality news organizations, and by lawyers and human rights groups and so on.

The news in Europe, West and East, is still showing America in flames, flood, etc. Cities are shown underwater; befuddled American officials are shown trying to explain why we are winning the war on terrorism.

The paramedic called the press and sold me like a loaf of bread. This was news, and he wanted to be the one to report it.

God, George Bush makes me want to slash my wrists. He's so embarrassing I have to leave the room when he's on the news. What a monkey.

I think it's a good thing that there are bloggers out there watching very closely and holding people accountable. Everyone in the news should be able to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. I'm for as much transparency in the newsgathering process as possible.

I have the New York Daily News to thank for the jeans controversy.

Covering Richard Nixon's triumphant run in 1968 turned out to be my last major assignment as a general correspondent for CBS News. In September of that year, '60 Minutes' made its debut and I began the best, the most fulfilling job a reporter could imagine.

Even though mother's issues are not front page news, they touch us all personally, some more than others, and I believe passionately in the power of grassroots engagement.

I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office.