Political utterances are the foundations of political news stories, with journalists tasked daily to mediate them. These utterances include public speeches, press briefings, social media posts, private conversations with journalists, and more. Journalists covering the political field face crucial decisions on what to report, how to frame it, and whether to provide context or interpretation to what is said. Through semi-structured interviews with Israeli journalists, this study examines how journalists perceive the role and involvement of their own voices in reporting political utterances. The findings suggest that due to their mistrust of politicians' words, journalists integrate their interpretation of what is said, to provide the public with the information it needs to evaluate "correctly" the reported words. That is, journalists' voice is perceived as vital for delivering a reliable and neutral reporting of political utterances. By presenting this counter-intuitive view, the study illuminates how journalists' deal with two conflicting objectives: the desire to maintain neutrality on the one hand, and the need to tell "the truth" on the other, which requires them to embed their own voice in the reported utterances.
