Wrong Is Right (1982)

Robert Webber: Harvey

Quotes 

• Patrick Hale : The suitcases are the key. Lockwood needs the bombs to prove justifiable homicide, Rafeeq, to prove there were no bombs, and Mallory needs them to win the election. And we need them for an exclusive story. Book me on the first plane to Paris and have that money when I get there.

  Harvey : You expect us to pay two million dollars?

  Patrick Hale : Maybe more.

  Harvey : But that's checkbook journalism!

  Patrick Hale : What kind of journalism was it when television paid half a million for an exclusive on the Bay of Pigs? A million dollars for Nixon to apologize coast to coast? CBS paid Haldeman, Eisenhower and Johnson. NBC paid John Dean and Robert Kennedy's assassin. ABC paid Lieutenant Calley and for breakfast served up the My Lai massacre. And what about the killer I put on television? From death row to the electric chair, fried meat on prime time. You paid one hundred thousand dollars for that! Paid it to the killer! Do you call that journalism? We're in show business, baby. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them buy, by and by. Get that guy on camera.

  Harvey : What?

  Patrick Hale : The soldier with the bleeding stumps. You rolling? Hey, sarge, you're on TV! How does it feel losing your legs? You call that news? We peddle disaster! And violence, it's commercial! Blood and tears and football and cheers. Performers, superstars. Get them on, get them off. Next, next, fast, fast! We're in the entertainment business. There's nothing wrong with that... if you call it that. Now, folks, for my next act, I'm going to try to save the president's neck.

  Harvey : You bum, you're the one that exposed him!

  Patrick Hale : Right! And that's not wrong. That's my job. And if he told the truth, I'll get the facts to prove it. And that's my job too!

  Harvey : I happen to be for Mallory!

  Patrick Hale : Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.