The democratization of news is fine and splendid, but it's not reporting. It's based on a fragment of information picked up from television or the web, and people are sounding off about something that's not necessarily true.

If I want to spend the rest of my life reading one day's output of information, which is about what it would take, OK fine. But I personally prefer calibration from an aggregator or newspaper, where the No. 1 story is one they consider important, [and] they're usually right.

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.

Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.

When I was studying at Chicago and at Stanford University, where many many cases of two people observing the same event have a different take on what happened.

I think America has a brilliant future.

[We need to] protect copyright at all costs. Don't do cheap deals with Google and these other cyber-monsters. Recognize that the creative artist has to be maintained.

My wife [Tina Brown] co-founded the Daily Beast, so I have no hostility to the web or Internet. A number of print friends of mine regard it as the worst thing that's ever happened, but I don't.

What I'm driving at is let's not lose sight in our excitement of the democratization of the media that some things are bad, false and ugly - and no amount of electronic gloss will make them true, beautiful and accurate.

If Rupert Murdoch wants to charge for content online, he will succeed in so far, but no further than what he provides that is unique and can't be found anywhere. It doesn't seem to me that if he wants to charge it will be a blow to universal freedom and liberty of mankind.

Actions are always more complex and nuanced than they seem. We have to be willing to wrestle with paradox in pursuing understanding.

We always talk about how everyone is unifocal. You can't possibly be interested in jazz and Beethoven. Of course you can. You can't both be reading a newspaper and be online. Of course you can. We shouldn't be obsessed with a gun to your head, 'You either read a newspaper or die!'

I love craftsmanship of any kind, a job well done either by my chiropractor or carpenter, and I am addicted to print, the type, the ink. But my basic passion is journalism and I can't live without being online.

In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat.