Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the tendency of journalists to prioritize laziness over the necessity of competence in their work.
Kingsley Amis highlights a concerning trend in journalism where laziness has taken precedence over incompetence. By suggesting that laziness is the 'chief characteristic' of the profession, Amis implies that many journalists may choose the easier path of not investigating thoroughly or reporting diligently, thereby undermining the integrity and quality of journalism as a whole.
In practice
In a discussion on the decline of journalistic standards, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for integrity in media.
When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.
One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.
Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.
He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic.
The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence
One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay.
Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.
In truth, you are spirit. The body has been projected by the mind, which itself originates from Spirit.
You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors.
Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, I wrote in my notebook, and then, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else's, dying again.
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