No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Notes on Journalism, Chicago Tribune (19 Sep 1926)

Popularly, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

 
Added on 28-Sep-11 | Last updated 7-Oct-13
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3 thoughts on “Notes on Journalism, <i>Chicago Tribune</i> (19 Sep 1926)”

  1. R. Diego Valenti

    The newspapers chronicle with degrading avidity the sins of the second-rate, and with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic details of the doings of people of absolutely no interest whatsoever.”

    Oscar Wilde, In Conversation

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