Carl Bernstein quotes

Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist, best known for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal. As a reporter for The Washington Post, he helped expose corruption at the highest levels of U.S. government. He continues to influence journalism and the pursuit of truth. Here are 20 of his quotes:

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

Carl Bernstein

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

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

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

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

Carl Bernstein

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

Carl Bernstein

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

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. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Paul was the first modern pope to grow up in a secular culture: He attended public schools, danced with girls - indeed, as a teenager he had a crush on a beautiful Jewish girl who fled his hometown just ahead of the arrival of the Germans.

Carl Bernstein

Even at the end of a presidential election campaign, we have no way to know what Mitt Romney really believes.

Carl Bernstein

The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.

Carl Bernstein

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