18 Quotes by Fred W. Friendly

Today's reporter is forced to become an educator more concerned with explaining the news than with being first on the scene.

I have a motto: My job is not to make up anybody's mind but to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking.

I have a motto: My job is not to make up anybody’s mind but to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking.

TV is bigger than any story it reports. It’s the greatest teaching tool since the printing press.

While the Constitution is what the judges say it is, a public issue is something that Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor recognizes as such. The media by themselves do not make the decisions, but on behalf of themselves and larger interests they certify what is or is not on the nation’s agenda.

What we don’t know as a nation and as a citizen can kill us.

Today’s reporter is forced to become an educator more concerned with explaining the news than with being first on the scene.

Television makes so much at its worst that it can’t afford to do its best.

A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It’s disorderly. It’s dishonest and it’s not journalism.