“We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.”

—  Dave Barry

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Dave Barry 121
American writer 1947

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“Human beings are tool-making animals. Since the prehistoric era, we have created and used a wide variety of objects. But now a significant change is about to occur. In the near future, we will simply become another object that can be monitored, tracked and controlled within a vast machine.”

John Twelve Hawks American writer

From Interviews

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“I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.
Jennings said that everyone — even journalists — have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.
"And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair.”

Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor

Interview for KETV NewsWatch 7 as quoted in article at The Omaha Channel (19 October 2004)

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“But do we know how to make love stay?'
I can't even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker

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“Just because we hit on points that resonate, or people think are real complaints—that doesn't make us journalists.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Hartford Advocate Interview (2008)
Context: People would like to place a standard on our show that doesn't exist. We're not set up for reporting; we don't have an apparatus for that. We're discussing things that hopefully people might get something out of, but it's wildly inconsistent. Just because we hit on points that resonate, or people think are real complaints—that doesn't make us journalists.

“With the development of the human race (and perhaps a little earlier), a new structure emerges, which we can call know-what. This consists of the structures in the nervous system which presumably map into some kind of images in the of the 'mind', which also map into structure in the 'real world', whatever that is. Know-what is very different from know-how. The fertilized egg certainly has the know-how to make whatever organism it knows how to make, but it is very doubtful that it knows what it is doing. The remarkable thing about know-what is that it creates know-how, as we see with the fantastic burgeoning of human artifacts under the influence of a science-based technology. Science, fundamentally, deals with know-what and this enormously increases know-how.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding (1984) In: Meheroo Jussawalla, Helene Ebenfield eds. Communication and information economics: new perspectives. p. vii as cited in: John Laurent (2003) Evolutionary Economics and Human Nature. p. 177
1980s

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“Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to hear what God would tell us on that very point.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 197.

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“Thus must we toil in other men's extremes,
That know not how to remedy our own.”

Thomas Kyd book The Spanish Tragedy

Act III, sc. vi
The Spanish Tragedy (1592)

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“And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted — "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Source: The Rubaiyat (1120)

Bill Thompson photo

“Whatever analogy we choose, one thing is clear - any group with influence needs people outside that group who will criticise it. In the real world of politics and society, journalists do that - proper journalists who know what having principles means, who aim for objectivity while accepting that it is unattainable, and who are open about who pays them and who they work with.”

Bill Thompson (1960) English technology writer, born 1960

" Blog eats blog: The rise of the blogeoisie. http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DDA4.htm" by Bill Thompson, May 15, 2003.

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“We are so used to releasing words, we don't know what to do with them if they stay. No matter how many times we let them go, they come back. The words that matter always stay.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

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