Press, News and the Lack of Love
of Truth, Humility, Tolerance and Ethic Values
Truth is not a mere agreement between what one says or
writes and the facts. And an example of this very thing
is contemporary journalism.
Much of what is said or written in the present-day press
can be considered as truth if we adopt a restricted
sense of truth. They report and communicate facts. But
the dominant reported facts and news – domestic crimes,
aggressions, nationalist displays, pink and scandalous
news – reveal also a strange inversion of priorities and
importance. Present journalism forgets or relegates to a
very secondary place wisdom, humility, tolerance and
ethical values. And that represents a tremendous lack of
love of truth.
When confronted with these criticisms the journalists
and those in charge wash their hands of it and point
their accusing finger to the public. It is impossible to
survive and grow without audiences and editions. The
press offers what the public wants. In the press, as in
other life’s grounds, one can’t follow abstract
principles of love (love of truth, in this case). There
is no place for moralising.
These are strong arguments. But we shouldn’t also forget
that in accepting the status quo we are also accepting
the cultural basis of violence, mediocrity, and inferior
mental stages. Our societies turn out to be the
reflexion of vicious circles, where the market laws,
allied to the inferior side of human nature and our
more animal and basic instincts, are creating news and
culture at what Wilmott Lewis called the standards of a
certain «elderly lady in Hasting who has two cats of
which she is passionately fond»:
I think it well to remember that when writing for the
newspapers, we are writing for an elderly lady in
Hastings who has two cats of which she is passionately
fond. Unless our stuff can successfully compete for her
interest with those cats, it is no good.
Willmott Lewis, 1877-1950, journalist, in Claud Cockburn
In Time of Trouble
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Quotations
The 4th Power: a satirical view of the Press
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech,
but none that are worth anything to protect the people from
the press.
Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American writer, License of the Press
When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens
so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.
John B. Bogart, 1848-1921, American journalist, in F. M.
O’Brien The Story of the Sun
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead'
to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
G. K. Chesterton, 1847-1936, English writer, Wisdom of
Father Brown
Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing
people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.
Frank Zappa, 1940-93, American actor, in Linda Botts
Loose Talk
Newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate between a
bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.
Attributed to Bernard Shaw, 1856-1960, Irish writer
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