One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that merging entertainment, advertising, and journalism creates inherent challenges.
Edward R. Murrow highlights the fundamental issues in radio and television news by pointing out that the intertwining of show business, advertising, and journalism leads to conflicts and instability. These three fields, each with their unique demands, when combined, create a chaotic environment where true journalism may suffer in favor of entertainment value and commercial interests.
In practice
In a media literacy workshop, one could use this quote to discuss the importance of discerning news from entertainment.
We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
The best speakers know enough to be scared…the only difference between the pros and the novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.
Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.
Because he is a living divinity, when he acts, the universe acts.
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.
In a heated argument we are apt to lose sight of the truth.
There is a God and He is good, and his love, while free, has a self imposed cost: We must be good to one another.
In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.
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