The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
A. J. LieblingRead
A city with one newspaper... is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
Interpretation
A single source of information can lead to a narrow perspective, similar to a person with limited vision.
This quote by A. J. Liebling emphasizes the importance of diversity in information sources. Just as a man with only one eye has a restricted view of the world, a city reliant on a single newspaper may lack a comprehensive understanding of events, opinions, and ideas, potentially leading to a distorted perception of reality, akin to an artificial, glass eye.
In practice
In a speech about media literacy, one could use this quote to highlight the need for multiple news sources.
The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.
No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures. No ascetic can be considered reliably sane.
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy
A city with one newspaper, or with a morning and an evening paper under one ownership, is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.
I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.
The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place.
I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the picture. What Big History can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power, with collective learning.
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