David Folkenflik Quotes

I think there's been an overestimation of how much the press can shape coverage and people's decisions.

Each time that Donald Trump promises to come forward with something, when you actually get to the point of disclosure it seems as though there's a lot less that was promised for the press and particularly for the public to understand.

I think it's very important to be able to hear from our public leaders in ways that they can't entirely orchestrate, seeing them speak live and unscripted and take questions that they themselves haven't arranged ahead of time. I think this is a way in which citizens who are deciding what they think of their leaders who govern in their name, this is one of the ways in which they can evaluate how they feel about the quality of the leadership.

After all, the reporters are the ones who get to ask the questions.

The paid Trump surrogates help CNN keep his supporters engaged with their shows, but it also sends their own reporters busy chasing after many of their false claims. That's not a virtuous news cycle. It's an insidious one.

CNN stands to make a hundred million dollars more than it's expected lift for the election cycle, due to the phenomenon that is Donald Trump.

People working for a news organization, even those with a point of view, are supposed to exercise independent judgment.

The press is supposed to equip people to act as citizens and not just consumers of programming that happens to be news.

I'm not at an extreme, but I do think that Donald Trump is a self-created creature. But the media has feasted on his spectacle and he wouldn't live without the attention. He's repaid the favor by attacking the press, but that's generated more reactive coverage.

You know, trust in the press, polls show - from Pew and other places - have gone down significantly over the years. Maybe the press doesn't have that much ability to frame people's decisions.

Trump's - has great negatives, enormous negatives, a lot of people say they simply won't vote for him. So if he's gotten media, maybe it hasn't done him so much good.

Near counts more than far, familiar more than different. Such is the indictment against the press, that it fails to treat similar tragedies with equal dignity.