“It is easy for journalism to be morally casual, even as it makes large moral claims for itself. So when journalism is accused by those it serves of privileging sensation before significance, celebrity before achievement, intrusion before purposeful investigation and entertainment before reliability, the charge demands a response. Journalism stands accused of being not so much a public service as a public health hazard.”

“Journalism must have been very different before people resolved so many of their conflicts with bullets.”

“It is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Every body allows that the talent of writing is particularly female. Nature might have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”

“Man is certainly free, but he is responsible for this freedom before God as before men. This responsibility is inevitably moral. In order of this morality, to be free is to protect the freedom of others and their dignities.”

“Never make a defense or apology before you are accused.”

“It should be apparent that the belief in objectivity in journalism, as in other professions, is not just a claim about what kind of knowledge is reliable. It is also a moral philosophy, a declaration of what kind of thinking one should engage in, in making moral decisions. It is, moreover, a political commitment, for it provides a guide to what groups one should acknowledge as relevant audiences for judging one's own thoughts and acts.”