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
Things that happen every day are, frankly, what we in the news business aren't good at covering because there is no one day in which they are news.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Daily events often go unnoticed by the media because they lack the sensational elements that attract attention.
Nicholas Kristof highlights the tendency of the news business to overlook everyday occurrences, emphasizing that significant aspects of life are often underreported because they do not fit the narrative of urgent or breaking news. This reflects a philosophical stance on the nature of news and how it shapes our understanding of reality, where important but mundane events fade into the background in favor of more dramatic stories.
Themes
NewsMediaDaily LifeEveryday EventsReporting
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of local journalism, this quote could be used to emphasize the need to cover community issues.
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Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.
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Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.
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Since the end of the 1970s, something has gone profoundly wrong in America. Inequality has soared. Educational progress slowed. Incarceration rates quintupled. Family breakdown accelerated. Median household income stagnated.
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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.
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