Words&Dirt

“There is no conspiracy.  Even though the media are mostly corporate-owned, their first allegiance is to their public because if they lose that allegiance, they lose money.

Sometimes the press leads the public; sometimes the public leads the press.  The media, at least the mainstream media, don’t want to get too far ahead.  They just don’t want to be left behind.

Conspiratorial?  That’s a joke.  Craven?  Not quite so funny.

Once I was confronted by a gaggle of high-ranking Chinese journalists who pointed to several instances in which American news outlets pulled their punches when reporting on the Bust administration and the Iraq war.  They said that proved the American media were afraid of the government.

That’s ridiculous, I replied.  The American media are not afraid of the government.  They are afraid of their audiences and advertisers.  The media do not control you.  They pander to you.”

––The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, by Brooke Gladstone, pg. xiv

“Love’s counsel has rarely been heard, and when I have heard it, I have willfully ignored it.

But the soul harbors its own tides.  Much has changed in eighteen months.  I have a new little boy now.  Impetuous Pride, I have learned, is better at seizing ground than holding it.  Love’s inroads have insensibly made up all the ground that she lost, and more.  This letter may be considered the instrument of Pride’s surrender, and Love’s victory.  It only remains for terms to be negotiated.”

––The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 367