4 Quotes & Sayings By John Hockenberry

John Hockenberry is a radio journalist and host of "The Takeaway" on WNYC radio. He began his radio career at the age of 23 as a weekend music programmer at WBAI in New York City, where he was executive producer from 1990 to 1993. In 1994 he joined the staff of NPR's "Morning Edition" as a reporter and host. During a two-year period from 1995 to 1997, he also hosted a daily public affairs program on WGBH Read more

In 1997, he joined WNYC as a member of the morning news team and co-hosted "The Takeaway" from 1999 to 2009, when NPR suspended it as part of budget cuts. His book "How I Created Modern Music Radio: The Secret History of Rock and Roll" was published in 2013 by HarperCollins.

1
One of the great myths about war is that there is a ground zero, a center stage, where the terrible forces unleashed by it can be witnessed, recounted, and replayed like the launching of a rocket. War is a human activity far too large to be contained in the experience of a single reporter in a single place and time in any meaningful way. When it comes, it happens to everyone. Everything is in its path. Yet this is the allure of war reporting, the chance of acquiring some personal mother lode of truth to beam back to the living rooms of a waiting nation. The fear that comes from reporting on a war is as much a fear of missing this mother load as it is of being injured or killed in battle, and it sets reporters apart from the people who have to fight wars. Soldiers have their own agonies to think about as a battle approaches. Missing the war is not generally one of them. John Hockenberry
2
In America access is always about architecture and never about human beings. Among Israelis and Palestinians, access was rarely about anything but people. While in the U.S. a wheelchair stands out as an explicitly separate experience from the mainstream, in the Israel and Arab worlds it is just another thing that can go wrong in a place where things go wrong all the time. John Hockenberry
3
Design is the courage and brilliance to cover an original and make it different. John Hockenberry