Quotes By Bob Schieffer

I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.

But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.

I had - all my life, everybody who knew me thought that I would probably grow up to be a reporter, a newspaper reporter because we didn't have much television in those days.

For sure, the American people have access to more information now than any other people who have ever lived on earth. And I think we do a pretty good job of sorting out what's important.

The government's view is that the best time to announce bad news, news that it doesn't want the public to dwell on is late on a Friday, when it will wind up in the Saturday papers, which if you were readers, then the week day editions. A holiday weekend is even better.

We're far from perfect. It's a human enterprise.

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

But with 9/11, we found that people tended to come back to the networks and the people who had been our core viewers in the past came back and they have stayed with us.

It's no longer just reporting the headlines of the day, but trying to put the headlines into some context and to add some perspective into what they mean.

And as a result, I guess I'm just kind of a rubberneck. I'm kind of a - someone who likes to see things and likes to see these events and talk to the people who make them happen. But I don't think journalists are as important as the people they cover.

My bladder cancer was related to smoking, and I think smoking kills people.

One thing young people have to always keep in mind when deciding what they want to do with their lives is, is it fun? Is it something that I'm interested in? Is it something I enjoy?

I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I'm not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me.

I used to be a print reporter.

If you get asked a really tough question and you give a really good answer, you come off looking really good.

I've had a lot of fun, and when I talk to kids in journalism schools, I say, look, I know what the journalism teachers tell you that this is a great way to perform public service and all that, but I say the main reason, if you decide what you want to do is be a reporter, the main reason you want to do it is because it's just so much fun.

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

It's getting the right person that's the challenge.

I've basically thought of myself as a writer, whether I was or not.

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

We now assume that when people turn on the evening news, they basically already know what the news is. They've heard it on the radio. They've seen it on the Internet. They've seen it on one of the cable companies. So that makes our job a bit different.

In so many of the other beats these days, there are these layers of public relations people that you have to go through to get to the newsmakers themselves.

People are more sophisticated in the way they go about dealing with the press.

But if you're going to go out on a military unit, you've got to allow yourself to be under the control of the commander because you really could put the troops in danger.

At the White House, everybody works for the same person. They're all part of the same company. But on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors. They all work for themselves. That's a formula for getting news.

I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.

I want to try to talk like normal people talk, not just stand there and bark at the camera.

They've asked me to do this temporarily. I don't know what temporarily means. Life is temporary.

The truth is the Super Bowl long ago became more than just a football game. It's part of our culture like turkey at Thanksgiving and lights at Christmas, and like those holidays beyond their meaning, a factor in our economy.

I always thought writing was the foundation and the basis for journalism in the same way being able to draw is the foundation for art.