A Good Use For The Printed Media

All newspaper writers have heard that the stuff they compose today has an excellent chance of being used to wrap tomorrow's mackerel.~ Ira Berkow

There is not much that is good about media in any form today. In fact, except for the comics and sports, which are at least mildly entertaining, the media distort facts and report opinions as fact, mislead, and generally act as agents of propaganda rather than actual news. The media while changing in technology have not changed much in these practices. It is interesting to see that others in the past had similar experiences and opinions about the media.

Definitions:

• "Media is a word that has come to mean bad journalism" ~ Graham Greene (English novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, 1904-1991)


• Editor: A person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed. ~ Elbert Hubbard


• Journalism - a profession whose business it is to explain to others what it personally does not understand. ~ Lord Northcliffe


• "The media tends to report rumors, speculations, and projections as facts... How does the media do this? By quoting some "expert"... you can always find some expert who will say something hopelessly hopeless about anything." ~ Peter McWilliams

Even Thomas Jefferson had strong opinions about the news media of his day.

• I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely happier for it.
• Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. (In a letter to Nathaniel Macon)
• The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

I found this anonymous quote that sums it all up.

Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Submission to PXITE for topic "media".