news quotes

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
-- Thomas Jefferson

And that's the way it is...
-- Walter Cronkite

In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
-- Frank Mankiewicz

Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who
can't talk for people who can't read.
-- Frank Zappa

A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a
watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he
looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his
tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were
they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led
by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged,
killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting
could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle
emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of
the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."

All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after
the battle is over and shoot the wounded.

A New Way of Taking Pills
A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and
having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with
small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks
will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment.
-- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens
who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known
something of what has been passing in their time.
-- H. Truman

Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor
two opposing ideas in his mind?
-- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters

 *** NEWSFLASH ***

Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!

"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
your own."
-- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words

Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it.

Earth Destroyed by Solar Flare -- film clips at eleven.

A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe.
Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we
never reveal our sauce."

FLASH!
Intelligence of mankind decreasing.
Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....

I only know what I read in the papers.
-- Will Rogers

A Hen Brooding Kittens
A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county,
a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three
kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring
says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that
she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young
felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at
her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings.
-- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861

The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a
plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal
other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable.
-- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On"

"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The
Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The
National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running
the country ..."
-- Robert J Woodhead

You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
you can always change the channel.
-- Jim Ignatowski