Carl Bernstein Quotes

• You can't serve the public good without the truth as a bottom line.

  Carl Bernstein

  Truth, Honesty, Lines

  "Watergate Journalist Says Media Losing Public’s Trust". www2.ljworld.com. April 16, 2005.

  64 Copy quote

• 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.

  Carl Bernstein

  Real, People, Ordinary

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  54 Copy quote

• Good journalism should challenge people, not just mindlessly amuse them.

  Carl Bernstein

  People, Challenges, Journalism

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• I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

  Carl Bernstein

  Thinking, Versions

  Interview with David Hirschman, bigthink.com. July 22, 2010.

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• We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.

  Carl Bernstein

  Fun, Stupid, Creating

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• The reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today and they, or rather we [journalists], too often are squandering our power and ignoring our obligations. The consequence of our abdication of responsibility is the ugly spectacle of idiot culture!

  Carl Bernstein

  Powerful, Responsibility, Reality

  "The best obtainable version of the truth". Carl Bernstein's talk at the annual convention of the Radio and Television News Directors Association, September 26, 1998.

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• For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

  Carl Bernstein

  Stupid, Culture, Firsts

  "An A-Z of Cultural Terms". www.theguardian.com. October 28, 2000.

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• Donald Trump is american neo-fascist. The word "neo" meaning "new", has a lot to do with it, a new kind of fascist in our culture, dealing with an authoritarian demagogic point of view, nativist, anti-immigrant, racism, bigotry that he appeals to.

  Carl Bernstein

  Racism, Culture, Kind

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Increasingly, the picture of our society as rendered in our media is illusionary and delusionary: disfigured, unreal, out of touch with reality, disconnected from the true context of our life. It is disfigured by celebrity, by celebrity worship, by gossip, by sensationalism, by denial of our societies

  Carl Bernstein

  Reality, Media, Gossip

  14 Copy quote

• The failures of the press have contributed immensely to the emergence of a talk-show nation, in which public discourse is reduced to ranting and raving and posturing. We now have a mainstream press whose news agenda is increasingly influenced by this netherworld.

  Carl Bernstein

  News, Agendas, Mainstream

  "The idiot culture". Carl Bernstein, The New Republic, June 8, 1992.

  9 Copy quote

• What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like? The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency. Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say, often.

  Carl Bernstein

  Lying, Self, Ideas

  12 Copy quote

• Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.

  Carl Bernstein

  Ordinary, Today, Garbage

  "An A-Z of cultural terms". The Guardian, June 3, 1992.

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• June 17, 1972. Nine o'clock Saturday morning. Early for the telephone. Woodward fumbled for the receiver and snapped awake. The city editor of the Washington Post was on the line. Five men had been arrested earlier that morning in a burglary attempt at Democratic headquarters, carrying photographic equipment and electronic gear. Could he come in?

  Carl Bernstein

  Morning, Men, June

  Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein (2012). “All the President's Men”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

  Carl Bernstein

  Missing, Quality, News

  "The failures of the press". The Guardian, June 3, 1992.

  70 Copy quote

• The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; its broken. One of our three branches of government is broken.

  Carl Bernstein

  Government, Broken, Branches

  10 Copy quote

• In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

  Carl Bernstein

  Views, Issues, Doctrine

  9 Copy quote

• Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

  Carl Bernstein

  Political, Reform, Movement

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• The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.

  Carl Bernstein

  May, Information, Pressure

  "An A-Z of cultural terms". The Guardian, June 3, 1992.

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• Public policy in the twentieth century was about protecting and expanding the social compact, based on recognition that effective government at the federal level provides rules and services and safety measures that contribute to a better society.

  Carl Bernstein

  Government, Safety, Levels

  7 Copy quote

• Hillary [Clinton] is neither the demon of the right's perception, nor a feminist saint, nor is she particularly emblematic of her time perhaps more old-fashioned than modern.

  Carl Bernstein

  Feminist, Perception, Saint

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the three original TV networks.

  Carl Bernstein

  New York, Years, Three

  "Carl Bernstein: Is Phone-Hacking Scandal Murdoch's Watergate?". www.newsweek.com. July 9, 2011.

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• Religion is one of the fundaments of Hillary Clinton's character and politics.

  Carl Bernstein

  Character, Clinton

  "Books: 'A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton'". Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. June 8, 2007.

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• There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.

  Carl Bernstein

  Struggle, People, House

  Carl Bernstein (1989). “Loyalties: A Son's Memoir”, Simon & Schuster

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• There's something totally crazy about this.

  Carl Bernstein

  Crazy, Nsa

  "Bernstein on NSA: 'We need an answer'" by Tal Kopan, www.politico.com. October 28, 2013.

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• At heart, Sussman was a theoretician. In another age, he might have been a Talmudic scholar. He had cultivated a Socratic method, zinging question after question at the reporters: Who moved over from Commerce to CRP with Stans? What about Mitchell's secretary? Why won't anybody say when Liddy went to the White House or who worked with him there? Mitchell and Stans both ran the budget committee, right? What does that tell you? Then Sussman would puff on his pipe, a satisfied grin on his face.

  Carl Bernstein

  Heart, White, House

  Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward (1999). “All the President's Men”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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