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Daily Inspiration Quote by Tom Brokaw

"It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about"

About this Quote

Brokaw’s line lands like a gentle demystification, and also a warning shot. By calling journalism “all storytelling,” he’s not shrinking the craft to spin or vibes; he’s naming the engine that makes facts travel. Information doesn’t move through a culture on accuracy alone. It moves when it’s shaped into sequence, scene, stakes, and human consequence - the basic grammar of narrative. Brokaw, a face of network news at its most trusted, is defending the role of the journalist as curator of meaning, not just a courier of data.

The subtext is double-edged. On one side, it’s a case for empathy and accessibility: if you can’t translate policy into lived experience, you haven’t really informed anyone. On the other, it concedes the dangerous permeability between reporting and performance. Storytelling implies choices: what opens the segment, whose voice carries authority, which images do the moral work, what gets left on the cutting-room floor. Those choices can illuminate reality or quietly script it.

Context matters: Brokaw comes from an era when three networks helped set a shared national agenda, and “anchor” wasn’t just a job title - it was a civic role. In today’s fractured, algorithm-driven media environment, the line reads less like reassurance and more like an admission that narrative is the battlefield. Everyone is telling stories; journalism’s credibility depends on showing its receipts while still earning attention. The intent is to remind us that objectivity isn’t the absence of narrative - it’s discipline inside it.

Quote Details

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Source
Later attribution: All This To Say What? (Bill Cusano, 2012) modern compilationISBN: 9781257975396 · ID: CKCYAwAAQBAJ
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
... It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about.” - Tom Brokaw Angela is a woman with a mission. She wants to get a job where her administrative and secretarial skills will be put to work helping others achieve the ...
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Brokaw, Tom. (2026, February 19). It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-all-storytelling-you-know-thats-what-163288/

Chicago Style
Brokaw, Tom. "It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about." FixQuotes. February 19, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-all-storytelling-you-know-thats-what-163288/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about." FixQuotes, 19 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-all-storytelling-you-know-thats-what-163288/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

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About the Author

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Tom Brokaw (born February 6, 1940) is a Journalist from USA.

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