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Quotations about news
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
I know that journalism largely consists in saying, “Lord Jones Dead” to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
“The Purple Wig,” The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914)
(Source)
While the quoted phrase uses a headline style, omitting the article, the vast majority of copies of it read "Lord Jones is dead." Other paraphrases:
- "Journalism is there to tell us Jones is dead, even though it didn’t tell us he was alive."
- "Journalism is the art of making interesting the fact that Lady Jones is dead , even to those who had never known that she was alive."
- "Our business of news is telling the world that Lord Jones is dead when most of us did not even know he was alive."
I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Everybody Tells Me Everything,” The Face Is Familiar (1940)
(Source)
Although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (1945)
(Source)
Life is not made up of dramatic incidents — even the life of a nation. It is made up of slowly evolving events and processes, which newspapers, by a score of different forms of emphasis, can reasonably attempt to explore from day to day. But television news jerks from incident to incident. For the real world of patient and familiar arrangements, it substitutes an unreal world of constant activity, and the effect is already apparent in the way which the world behaves. It is almost impossible, these days, to consider any problem or any event except as a crisis; and, by this very way of looking at it, it in fact becomes a crisis.
Henry Fairlie (1924-1990) British journalist and social critic
“Can You Believe Your Eyes?” Horizon (Spring 1967)
I am weary of reading Newspapers. The Times are so full of Events, the whole Drama of the World is such a Tragedy that I am weary of the Spectacle.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Abigail Adams (27 Feb 1793)
A democracy is badly served when newspapers and television focus so intensely on the personal joys and tragedies of famous people. This kind of “news” crowds out more serious issues, and there is an important difference — as the Constitution’s framers well knew, and as many people today appear to have forgotten — between the public interest and what interests the public.
Cass R. Sunstein (b. 1954) American legal scholar
“Reinforce the Walls of Privacy,” New York Times (6 Sep 1997)
If you have anything to tell me of importance, for God’s sake begin at the end.
Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861-1922) Canadian author and journalist
The Imperialist (1904)
There ain’t any news in being good. You might write the doings of all the convents of the world on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare.
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
(Attributed)
What’s wan man’s news is another man’s throubles.
[What’s one man’s news is another man’s troubles.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“The News of a Week,” Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902)
There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
“Journalism and the Higher Law,” Liberty and the News (1920)
See Rabelais.
