How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

The truth is I don't have any problem with journalists - I count some of them as friends - also some of my heroes are journalists I'm a big fan of Robert Fisk - great people or crazy people who are prepared to stand up for what's right.

A lot of journalism wants to have what they call objectivity without them having a commitment to pursuing the truth but that doesn't work. Objectivity requires belief in and a commitment toward pursuing the truth - having an object outside of our personal point of view.

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information misinformation disinformation and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism. Today ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

If you are a reliable honest journalist sources will open up and trust you and share good information.

Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn't trust me.

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks so we have to carve out our own niche and to me that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.

I don't trust a lot of journalists.

The desire to become a journalist came really because I very much like living abroad and like to travel and wanted to be paid for it.

Of all possible subjects travel is the most difficult for an artist as it is the easiest for a journalist.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

When I started out as a music journalist at the end of the 1980s it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded beatbox disco soared indie rock took off and new wave invented a language of teen angst.

In a way film and television are in the same sort of traumatic trance that print journalism is. The technology has outpaced our comprehension of its implications.

I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal because if you lose it then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel I try and fill up notepads.

NASA was going to pick a public school teacher to go into space observe and make a journal about the space flight and I am a teacher who always dreamed of going up into space.

I was sports editor for my high school newspaper but I think I shied away from journalism.

It's a little bit in the genes because my brother is a journalist and my father was a sports writer.

I would love to be associated with some sports organization. I was a journalism major. That's kind of intriguing to do something in the political-commentary arena.

In emerging democracies like Russia in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

I mean Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople teachers and educators journalists. So we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society and they actually make it the vibrant society it is.

I don't have any well-developed philosophy about journalism. Ultimately it is important in a society like this so people can know about everything that goes wrong.