One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous,

[O]ne reporter... is intrepidly meticulous and he blows the story... [A]ll the cable shows, everybody goes wild with derision as the story unfolds... [T]he overreaction is massive slaughter of the rats. They keep coming. They keep breeding... working overtime... and that is what gets people's attention about Congress.

A generation of reporters saw the Washington Post win a Pulitzer for exposing the scandal, and many dreamed of being the next Woodward or Bernstein. A strong and skeptical press corps is good for democracy. Often the media’s first instinct is to portray every story as a scandal, however, which presents a distorted picture of government and leaves the public cynical.

The number one fact about the news media is they love fights. When you give them confrontations, you get attention; when you get attention, you can educate.

The current media environment both encourages and perpetuates these reactions because, after all, it’s good for business. The writer and media commentator Ryan Holiday refers to this as “outrage porn”: rather than report on real stories and real issues, the media find it much easier (and more profitable) to find something mildly offensive, broadcast it to a wide audience, generate outrage, and then broadcast that outrage back across the population in a way that outrages yet another part of the population. This triggers a kind of echo of bullshit pinging back and forth between two imaginary sides, meanwhile distracting everyone from real societal problems. It’s no wonder we’re more politically polarized than ever before.

The press may not be successful most of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.

You cannot imagine the wild enthusiasm that these two men created in Vienna. Newspapers went into raptures over each new waltz, and innumerable articles appeared about Lanner and Strauss.

[About covering the story of Jamie Reed's work at a pediatric gender clinic in Missouri:] When you break a story and other publications follow it, as happens a lot of the time with The Free Press, it is very professionally gratifying. But the reason that this story was especially important and gratifying for us to have substantiated was because it is exactly the kind of story that we exist to pursue. It is exactly the kind of morally naughty story in which journalists avoid pursuing it because they know they will be punished or smeared for doing so. That is why The Free Press exists. [...] And just covering those topics, not in an histrionic way, but in a sober, fair-minded, honest, frank way that treats readers like adults.

The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's a the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. If you aren't careful, because I've seen some of you caught in that bag, you run away hating yourself and loving the man — while you're catching hell from the man. You let the man maneuver you into thinking that it's wrong to fight him when he's fighting you. He's fighting you in the morning, fighting you in the noon, fighting you at night and fighting you all in between, and you still think it's wrong to fight him back. Why? The press. The newspapers make you look wrong.

And so I have conceived that the news, properly presented, should be a sort of cross-section of the character of current human experience. It should delineate character, quality, tendencies and implications. In this way the reporter exercises his genius. Out of the current events he does not make a drab and sordid story, but rather an informing and enlightened epic. His work becomes no longer imitative, but rises to an original art.

News junkies love to read about others misery.

The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.

The media have gone berserk."
"The media always go berserk. A kid falls off a bike in Montana, they're all over it. Until something else happens.

What about the press generally? Standard and tabloid, vulgar and obscene, the papers run rumors daily about people in show business, tales of wicked ways and witless affairs, inanity and misbehavior. Reporters develop these stories from tips and yarns they pick up, or buy, in hallways, parking lots, costume and makeup rooms, bars and toilets. They also reprint "releases" from press agents, although release stuff is always laudatory, tepid and bland. Army Archerd at Variety is the only columnist I know who checks his tips and rumors by making personal phone calls. He is a respectable reporter and commentator, and his specialty is straight news from authentic sources. In the main, show-biz buzz-artists, discovering that celebrities are dull, not vivacious and absorbing, do not hesitate to rush misinformation into print, usually adding a soupcon of scandal. Some celebs, being witless, are not disturbed; they are getting the publicity they crave, and if it causes the world to marvel at them, their hearts are glad.
Not all celebrities are dunces. Many get upset when misrepresented, misinterpreted and misquoted, but their anger gets them nowhere. The eminent hournalists who wronged them assume a posture of plumb disbelief. The ungrateful staggering wounded are actually complaining about valuable publicity!