Ken Auletta Quotes

#1. Always point your finger at the chest of the person with whom you are being photographed. You will appear dynamic. And no photo editor can crop you from the picture.

Ken Auletta

#2. I think the press, which arguably was cowed by the (Bush) administration in the run-up to the war with Iraq, was certainly not cowed in covering the aftermath of Katrina.

Ken Auletta

#3. Zuckerberg had the good sense to know both his own limitations and interests. He wanted an executive who would free him to do what he loved: code, and enhancing the Facebook platform.

Ken Auletta

#4. The digital revolution has disrupted most traditional media: newspapers, magazines, books, record companies, radio.

Ken Auletta

#5. Journalists prize independence - not teamwork.

Ken Auletta

#6. Perhaps the biggest problem in journalism is the cult divide between journalists and corporate owners.

Ken Auletta

#7. Among the enduring truths I keep bumping into when there is the luxury of time to get to know people or institutions, is that their decisions are often made for what are not, strictly speaking, reasons of logic.

Ken Auletta

#8. There are those who believe a liberal or a conservative bias permeates the media. I don't. The operative press bias is one that favors conflict, not ideology, and it is lashed by a market-driven bias to boost ratings or circulation with more wow stories, more sizzle.

Ken Auletta

#9. Objective is the wrong word. Rather, it's fairness. Objectivity is a false God. Instead we should strive for fairness and transparency.

Ken Auletta

#10. The entertainment industry as a whole has given more thought to the pollution of rivers than it has to the pollution of minds.

Ken Auletta

#11. Without vision, even the most focused passion is a battery without a device.

Ken Auletta

#12. An important reason Google is usually listed among the world's most trusted brands is that it conveys a sense that the user comes first.

Ken Auletta

#13. If the Ivy League was the breeding ground for the elites of the American Century, Stanford is the farm system for Silicon Valley.

Ken Auletta

#14. The digital revolution is almost as disruptive to the traditional media business as electricity was to the candle business.

Ken Auletta

#15. Stanford University is so startlingly paradisial, so fragrant and sunny, it's as if you could eat from the trees and live happily forever.

Ken Auletta

#16. The importance of humility. We need the humility to know that truth can be ephemeral, that this can be but one version of the truth.

Ken Auletta

#17. There's a bias on hiring the best engineers wherever they come from. It does seem like a lot of the non-engineering execs come from Ivy League schools, as is true in much of corporate America and government.

Ken Auletta

#18. Poorer people tend to watch more television because they can't afford other diversions.

Ken Auletta

#19. Passion without focus can lead you astray.

Ken Auletta