Quote

Yes, you are running businesses, and yes, we understand and accept that, but surely there must be a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent.

Owning news makes you important; it gives you a seat at the table.

Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.

I think the press has an interest in communicating to its viewers or readers, and their viewers or readers drive profit for those news organizations, so I think those news organizations have a certain bias toward their own readers. Yeah, I think they are a special interest. Of course they are.

Newspapers can make their own judgment in terms of who they support in a general election. Our responsibility is to make a considered judgment about where the national interest lies.

By the same token, I think news has more and more of a pro bono aspect to all the networks. When we do our election coverages throughout this coming year, it's not a money-maker for us. It is more of a public service situation.

Everyone should get their news however they want to and in whatever form they want. I'm not going to sit back in judgment of other people and the way they do it.

I have always argued that newspapers should not have any civic purpose beyond telling readers what is happening... A reporter who doesn't quickly tell readers what they most want to know - the score - won't last long. Better he should teach political science.

So this guy, Jeff Johnson, who is an accountant who cares nothing at all about a free press and cares nothing about journalism, he's a right winger who supported the war, you know, who two years ago told people he couldn't stand a word that I wrote.

We all have our likes and our dislikes. But... when we're doing news - when we're doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we're doing the daily news, covering politics - it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.