"I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get"
About this Quote
Moral language is doing heavy lifting here: Amanpour isn’t just talking about newsroom policy, she’s drawing a bright ethical line around what counts as professional betrayal. “Kill stories” is industry slang, but she drags it into the light and makes it sound like what it is: an act of violence, not against a person, but against truth and the people who chased it. The phrase carries a journalist’s grim awareness that information has a body count attached to it.
Her distinction between “not to run” and “to kill” is the tell. Not running can be an editorial judgment, a legal caution, a verification problem. Killing is something else - institutional suppression, the kind that happens when power, access, corporate fear, or political pressure starts setting the assignment desk’s priorities. She’s defending the labor chain of reporting: fixers, local journalists, camera crews, sources who stick their necks out. If they’ve “risked their lives,” the newsroom’s obligation is no longer merely to inform an audience; it’s to honor the risk by refusing to let that sacrifice be traded away for convenience.
The context is a career built in war zones and authoritarian atmospheres, where the cost of gathering facts is immediate and physical. Amanpour’s intent is also internal: a warning to editors and executives that prestige journalism cannot posture as courageous while quietly laundering timidity upstairs. The subtext is blunt: if you bury the story, you don’t just waste bravery - you incentivize future silence.
Her distinction between “not to run” and “to kill” is the tell. Not running can be an editorial judgment, a legal caution, a verification problem. Killing is something else - institutional suppression, the kind that happens when power, access, corporate fear, or political pressure starts setting the assignment desk’s priorities. She’s defending the labor chain of reporting: fixers, local journalists, camera crews, sources who stick their necks out. If they’ve “risked their lives,” the newsroom’s obligation is no longer merely to inform an audience; it’s to honor the risk by refusing to let that sacrifice be traded away for convenience.
The context is a career built in war zones and authoritarian atmospheres, where the cost of gathering facts is immediate and physical. Amanpour’s intent is also internal: a warning to editors and executives that prestige journalism cannot posture as courageous while quietly laundering timidity upstairs. The subtext is blunt: if you bury the story, you don’t just waste bravery - you incentivize future silence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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