Katie Nelson > Katie's Quotes

“News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.”
― William Randolph Hearst

“News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, In the Mecca

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
― Arthur Miller

“We reveal most about ourselves when we speak about others.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“If you were born with the ability to change someone’s perspective or emotions, never waste that gift. It is one of the most powerful gifts God can give—the ability to influence.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own.”
― Wes Nisker

“News is only the first rough draft of history.”
― Alan Barth

“Sure, some news is bigger news than other news. War is bigger news than a girl having mixed feelings about the way some guy fucked her and didn't call. But I don't believe in a finite economy of empathy; I happen to think that paying attention yields as much as it taxes.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“The news is supposed to be a mirror held up to the world, but the world is far too vast to fit in our mirror. The fundamental thing the media does all day, every day, is decide what to cover — decide, that is, what is newsworthy.

Here’s the dilemma: to decide what to cover is to become the shaper of the news rather than a mirror held up to the news. It makes journalists actors rather than observers. It annihilates our fundamental conception of ourselves. And yet it’s the most important decision we make. If we decide to give more coverage to Hillary Clinton’s emails than to her policy proposals — which is what we did — then we make her emails more important to the public’s understanding of her character and potential presidency than her policy proposals. In doing so, we shape not just the news but the election, and thus the country.

While I’m critical of the specific decision my industry made in that case, this problem is inescapable. The news media isn’t just an actor in politics. It’s arguably the most powerful actor in politics. It’s the primary intermediary between what politicians do and what the public knows. The way we try to get around this is by conceptually outsourcing the decisions about what we cover to the idea of newsworthiness. If we simply cover what’s newsworthy, then we’re not the ones making those decisions — it’s the neutral, external judgment of news worthiness that bears responsibility. The problem is that no one, anywhere, has a rigorous definition of newsworthiness, much less a definition that they actually follow.”
― Ezra Klein, Why We're Polarized

“I would tell young journalists to be brave and go against the tide. When everyone else is relying on the internet, you should not; when nobody's walking, you should walk; when few people are reading profound books, you should read. ... rather than seeking a plusher life you should pursue some hardship. Eat simple food. When everyone's going for quick results, pursue things of lasting value. Don't follow the crowd; go in the opposite direction. If others are fast, be slow. -- Jin Yongquan”
― Judy Polumbaum, China Ink: The Changing Face of Chinese Journalism

“I think journalism anywhere should be based on social justice and impartiality, making contributions to society as well as taking responsibility in society. Whether you are capitalist or socialist or Marxist, journalists should have the same professional integrity. --Tan Hongkai”
― Judy Polumbaum, China Ink: The Changing Face of Chinese Journalism

“A free press doesn't mean it's not a tame press.”
― andrew vachss

“I used to think the most important thing for a reporter was to be where the news is and be the first to know. Now I feel a reporter should be able to effect change. Your reporting should move people and motivate people to change the world. Maybe this is too idealistic. Young people who want to be journalists must, first, study and, second, recognize that they should never be the heroes of the story. ..A journalist must be curious, and must be humble. --Zhou Yijun”
― Judy Polumbaum, China Ink: The Changing Face of Chinese Journalism

“I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.”
― Helen Thomas

“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.”
― David Baldacci, The Christmas Train

“The image of the journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the journalist as the life of the party.”
― Nora Ephron, Wallflower at the Orgy

“Reporters trade in pain. It sells papers. Everyone knows that.”
― Jonathan Maberry, Dead of Night

“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.”
― Susan Sontag, On Photography

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”
― Robert Frank

“Pain without cause is a pain we can't trust. We assume it's been chosen or fabricated.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“Girl gets; girl gets; girl gets. Not that she is granted things but that things keep happening to her, until they don’t—until she starts doing unto others as they have done, hurting everyone who ever hurt her, moving the world with her mind, conducting its objects like an orchestra.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“We like who we become in response to injustice: it makes it easy to choose a side. Our capacity to care, to get angry, is called forth like some muscle we weren't entirely aware we had.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“Bolivian women sewed their lips shut for days. They threaded needles through their skin to stop their speech, to show what good speaking had done them.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“I wanted to tell you: the world is full of stories. I wanted to tell you: Baby, I've seen such incredible things in this life. You weren't a baby yet. You were a possibility. But I wanted to tell you that every person you'd ever meet would hold an infinite world inside. It was one of the only promises I could make to you in good conscience.”
― Leslie Jamison, Make It Scream, Make It Burn