If the norm of the society is corrupted, then objective journalism is corrupted too, for it must not challenge the norm. It must accept the norm.

Bobby Kennedy said that when he had been a boy there were three major influences on children – the home, the church, and the school – and now there was a fourth – television.

Until he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.

Education was central to reporting.

Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians,

(I. F. Stone had once called it an exciting paper to read because you never knew on what page you would find a page-one story),

The networks at their worst (were) at once greedy and timid.

Even in a hostile press conference with hostile questions there was drama, and he could benefit from the drama and the hostility. He mastered the greatest art of television, appearing to be spontaneous without in fact being spontaneous.

Nixon under pressure turned only to reporters from publications already favorable to him; Kennedy, in trouble, turned to those most critical and dubious of him, and if anything tended to take those already for him a bit for granted.