As journalists, we cannot swallow the official line without question. We should challenge almost everything that dictators, presidents and officials say.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The most important responsibility we have as journalists is to question those who are in power. I honestly believe that.
I think as journalists, we have to keep our distance from power.
U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting.
We have to protect all journalists, and journalists have to be allowed to do their jobs.
When journalists forget that our job is to question and annoy those in power, there can be huge consequences.
As opposed to journalists, politicians cannot make do with questions. They must also offer answers.
The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on, rather than to their supposed antagonisms.
Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, that's what keeps them digging rather than simply accepting the official line, whether it comes from government or corporate bureaucrats.
The job of the press is to speak truth to power. And yet, for doing our job, we are persecuted. I say that these aggressive and illegal tactics to silence us - inventing arbitrary legal interpretations, over-zealous charges and disproportionate sentences - must not be permitted to succeed.
No opposing quotes found.