“Be interested in your subject, not in yourself. Listen carefully, with your own ears; don’t turn over the job to a tape recorder to listen for you. Be accurate, honest, responsible. Do homework and be prepared. Your point of view should be implicit in your choice of facts and quotes in your report. Don’t exploit your position as a reporter to divest yourself of pettiness, bitterness, jealousy, prejudice, resentment. Don’t be catty. Don’t gossip about people who try to help you in your reporting. Don’t gossip about your colleagues. Don’t try to go where you’re not welcome. Don’t write about anybody you don’t like. Try to be original by following your own instincts, your own ideas, your own thinking. Find the humor in everything you see or hear or feel. If you have anything to say, about the world, about life, look for a way to say it without making a speech.”
Lillian Ross (quoted in Susan Morrison, “The Fun of It,” The New Yorker, May 14, 2001)