How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

The truth is I don't have any problem with journalists - I count some of them as friends - also some of my heroes are journalists I'm a big fan of Robert Fisk - great people or crazy people who are prepared to stand up for what's right.

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks so we have to carve out our own niche and to me that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.

I don't trust a lot of journalists.

In emerging democracies like Russia in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

I mean Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople teachers and educators journalists. So we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society and they actually make it the vibrant society it is.

The smarter the journalists are the better off society is. For to a degree people read the press to inform themselves - and the better the teacher the better the student body.

Here in the United States our profession is much maligned people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

My relationship with the journalists who covered the campaign was complicated. I often hid from the critical eye of their cameras and their omnipresent digital recorders wary of the critique implicit in every captured moment. But I also grew to respect and understand their passion for their work their love for the journey we were sharing.

Sometimes negative news does come out but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women that is the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.

The larger meaning here is that mainstream journalists simply cannot talk about things that the two parties agree on this is the black hole of American politics.

Sometimes I lose a whole morning waiting on journalists and other people who look for me. But I always find some time for reading talking to my friends and feeling what is happening in this world.

The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on rather than to their supposed antagonisms.

Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.

I think journalists have the right to their opinions but I think their opinions should be based on history and what they see not what they feel how long they've been waiting or whether it's raining or it's snowing or whatever.

Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.

I think people are smart enough to sort it out. They know when they're watching one of these food fight shows where journalists sit around and yell and scream at each other versus serious issue reporting.

I can't say I'm not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it's not true. I'm not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash.

I have to remind my dad 'Journalists - no matter how many cigars they smoke with you - are not your friends so don't talk to them.'

A lot of journalists like to suck up to celebrities and then as soon as they're a safe distance away at their computers they take shots. But that's the way society has become especially in pop culture.

Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine but eventually as computers get more and more powerful it will kill off all middle-class professions.

The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs.