Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the shift in journalism from sharing informative content to spreading misinformation.
P. J. O'Rourke's quote highlights a concerning trend in modern media. It suggests that the original purpose of news broadcasts was to convey valuable information to the public; however, it implies that contemporary journalism often prioritizes sensationalism and the dissemination of ignorance, rather than factual reporting. This statement serves as a commentary on the state of information in today's society, where sensational stories may receive more attention than substantive news.
Themes
NewsMediaInformationMisinformationIgnorance
In practice
Example use cases
During a press conference discussing media integrity, someone might quote this to illustrate the changes in journalism.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
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