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"I have the necessary lack of tact."
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"When the New York Times scratches its head, get ready for total baldness as you tear out your hair."

"Pro-government press is not a press it is just a lie-generating ugly machine; it is a guard dog, guarding only the official thieves, not the public!"

"Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived."

"If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media's too soft or too hard, about 999 would say too hard."

"Madison Avenue is a very powerful aggression against private consciousness. A demand that you yield your private consciousness to public manipulation."

"The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying."

"This is the truth about mainstream media and advertising: People wouldn't have to pay to show you such messages if they were right."

"If you're nice, decent, attractive, get good grades and are talented, no one wants to read about that...They want to read what's out-of-the-ordinary, the scandalous, the shocking and the tragic. They want a story; they want to be captivated and what's typical does not give them that...unless, of course, that person ends up a victim, commits a crime or loses their minds via a love affair."
Explore more quotes by Ted Koppel

"My level of cynicism about the reasons that took us to war against Iraq remain just as well-developed as they were before I went."

"There is no more respected or influential forum in the field of journalism than the New York Times. I look forward, with great anticipation, to contributing to its op-ed page."

"Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation."

"To call something an 'enhanced interrogation technique' doesn't alter the fact that we thought it was torture when the Japanese used it on American prisoners, we thought it was torture when the North Koreans used it, we thought it was torture when the Soviets used it. You know, it's almost the moral equivalent of saying that rape is an enhanced seduction technique."

"More than four thousand programs produced and consumed. Some of them were pretty good, a great many of them were forgettable; but a handful may even be worth a book."

"Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach."

"People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media."

"I have been an unabashed fan of NPR for many years, and have stolen untold excellent ideas from its programming."
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