One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.
Nicholas KristofRead
The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. If we knew as much about Darfur as we do about Michael Jackson, we might be able to stop these things from continuing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes the media for prioritizing celebrity news over important humanitarian crises.
Nicholas Kristof highlights the troubling tendency of media outlets to focus their coverage on sensational celebrity stories while neglecting significant global issues such as the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. He suggests that if the public were as informed about such crises as they are about pop culture events, there would be a greater collective effort to address and potentially resolve these pressing challenges.
Themes
MediaHumanitarianCrisisAwarenessDarfurCelebrity
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about media responsibility at a journalism conference.
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Why are fanatics so terrified of girls' education? Because there's no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.
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