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NEWS --- NEWSPAPERS
NEWSPEAK

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NEWS

see: "JOURNALISM" for related links


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When a dog bites a man, that is not news,
because it happens so often. But if a man
bites a dog, that is news.
--John B. Bogart (1848—1921)
American journalist.
In F.M. O'Brien _The Story of the [New York] Sun_ [1918].

& see:

If a dog bites a man it is not news,
but if a man bites a dog it is.
--Charles A(nderson) Dana (1819—1897)
American journalist who became a national
figure as editor of the New York "Sun."
Attributed in "The Bookman" [February 1917].

& note:

According to Fred R. Shapiro (ed.) in _The Yale Book
of Quotations_, p.183 [2006], "'If a man bites a dog
it's news, if a dog bites a man it isn't' appeared in the
_Decatur (Ill.) Daily News_, 28 Dec. 1902, without
attribution.

-

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness.
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
_The Task_, Book ii. "The Timepiece", Line 1.

[Signoff of Walter Cronkite:]
And that's the way it is.
--Television catchphrase
"CBS Evening News"

No news is good news.
--James Howell (1593—1666)
English historian and writer.
"Familiar Letters" [3 June 1640]

That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where
all the women are strong, the men are good-
looking, and the children are above average.
--Garrison Keillor (b. 1942)
American writer and radio host.
His signature line, "A Prairie Home Companion," [1974-87].

Bad news travels fast.
--"Lady's Book" [1 October 1830]

Do not wake me when you have good news to
communicate, with that there is no hurry. But
when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly,
for then there is not a moment to be lost.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].
To his Secretary, quoted in Emerson's
essay, _Napoleon: Man of the World_.

Let the greatest part of the news thou hearest
be the least part of what thou believest.
--Francis Quarles (1592—1644)
English poet.
_Enchiridion_ [1640]

One Englishman is a story. Ten Frenchmen is a story. One
hundred Germans is a story. One thousand Indians is a story.
Nothing ever happens in Chile.
--attrib. London newsroom notice

-----

herald (noun) ['he-rκld]
Someone bearing important news, a harbinger; an officer
whose job it is to make official announcements of state or
at a tourney of arms.





NEWSPAPERS

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see: "JOURNALISM" for related links


The evil that men do lives on the front pages of
greedy newspapers, but the good is oft interred
apathetically inside.
--Brooks Atkinson (1894—1984)
American journalist and critic.
_Once Around the Sun_ [1951], "December 11"

[Of the "Daily Express":]
I ran the paper purely for propaganda, and with no other purpose.
--Lord Beaverbrook (1879—1964)
Canadian-born British newspaper proprietor and Conservative politician.
Evidence to Royal Commission on the Press [18 March 1948].

The advertisements in a newspaper are more
full of knowledge in respect to what is going
on in a state or community than the editorial
columns are.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister; brother of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.
Attributed in "Paint, Oil and Drug Review" [15 March 1911].

America is a country of inventors; and the greatest
of the inventors are the newspaper men.
--Alexander Graham Bell (1847—1922)
Scottish-born American audiologist best
known as the inventor of the telephone [1876].
Speech to the Empire Club of Canada, Toronto [1 November 1917].

I was thirty-seven when I went to work writing the
column. I was too old for a paper route, too young
for Social Security, and too tired for an affair.
--Erma Bombeck (1927—1996)
American humorist.
In Dorothy Uris, _Say It Again_ [1979], as quoted in
Susan L. Rattiner _Women's Wit and Wisdom_ [2000].

[Advice to young journalists:]
Put it all in the first paragraph.
--Samuel Bowles (1826—1878)
American journalist.
Quoted in _Encyclopζdia Britannica_, vol. IV [11th edition, 1910].

I read "The Times" and if my name is not
in the obits I proceed to enjoy the day.
--attributed to Noλl Coward (1899—1973)
English playwright, actor, and composer
--_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Death"

^

During the presidential election campaign of 1864, Henry J. Raymond wore two hats: He was chairman of the Republican National Committee and he was editor of the New York Times.

Early American newspaper publishers scoffed at the idea that they should hide their political prejudices under a cloak of objectivity. "To profess impartiality here," wrote William Cobbett in his Federalist newspaper, Porcupine's Gazette, "would be as absurd as to profess it in a war between virtue and vice, good and evil, happiness and misery." The motto of the Gazette of the United States, which began publication in 1789, was "He that is not for us is against us."

And a New Jersey printer wrote in 1798, "The times demand decision; there is a right and a wrong, and the printer, who under the specious name of impartiality jumbles both truth and falsehood into the same paper, is either doubtful of his own judgment or is governed by ulterior motives."

If ulterior motives played a part, however, it was to encourage early newspaper publishers to become deeply entrenched in politics. Circulation and advertising revenue couldn't support a newspaper, but government jobs or printing contracts could. When the political candidates they supported were elected, loyal editors expected pork or patronage, and their journals became "virtual branches of the government," wrote Eric Burns, author of "Infamous Scribblers."

The news pages — there was no such thing as an editorial — were unapologetically partisan, disdaining what Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune called "gagged, mincing neutrality." [...]

Local and state politicians also made deals with newspaper publishers for smaller payoffs. In 1841, Wilbur F. Storey's South Bend, Ind., newspaper backed a candidate whose campaign was faltering. Storey ran a front-page story saying the opponent, a Whig, had died. Not until four days after the election, which the Whig won, did Storey publish a correction. Later, as editor of the Chicago Times, Storey advised a Civil War correspondent, "Telegraph fully all news you can get, and when there is no news, send rumors."

Early newspaper editors felt no obligation to write respectfully about the nation's leaders, and "debauched" was a good fighting word. "If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by George Washington," declared the Philadelphia Aurora. The Columbian Centinel in Boston published a series of columns in 1800 called "The Jeffersoniad," exposing "the crooked character and principles of the Jacobin pretender to the presidency."

James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald wrote of Abraham Lincoln, "The idea that such a man as he should be the president of such a country as this is a very ridiculous joke."

Newspaper editors were at least as vituperative about their competitors. About the Aurora's editor, Benjamin Franklin Bache, William Cobbett wrote, "I should have no objection to the boys spitting on him as he goes along the street, if it were not that I think they would confer on him too much honour."

Mr. Storey called a competitor "a filthy and loathsome blackguard." The editor of the Gazette of the United States said James Callender, editor of the New York Journal, was a "scum of party filth and beggarly corruption worked into a form somewhat like a man." [...]

--Cynthia Crossen
"Dιjΰ Vu" column in _The Wall Street Journal_ [30 October 2006]

^

Britain will not be involved in a European
war this year, or next year either.
--Front page headline _Daily Express_
(London newspaper) [30 September 1938]

My father, normally a temperate man, so disliked the
[political views of the] Chicago Tribune that once,
when he had a flat tire in a snowstorm and the man
driving a Tribune truck offered to help him, my father
told the man to mind his own damn business and
bugger off. (My father used to tell this story as an
example of how stupid politics can make you.)
--Joseph Epstein
"The Last Tycoon?"
_The Wall Street Journal_ [9 April 2007]

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in
every district — all studied and appreciated as they merit
— are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil
liberty.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
Attributed in James Willis Westlake
_Common-School Literature, English and American_, p. 109 [1877].

The story of a man at Birmingham's burying his wife on a Tuesday,
marrying again on Thursday, having a child born to him on Friday,
and hanging himself on Saturday, which has been inserted in most
of the news papers in town and country, we are well assured from
that town is entirely without foundation.
--Gentleman's Magazine" [September 1732], as quoted in Frank Muir,
_The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose_ [pub. 1990, 2002 ed.].

If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't
worry about who makes its laws.
--George Gerbner (1919—2005)
American professor of mass communication.
_Bill Moyers' Journal_ "TV or Not TV" [23 April 1979]

^

Horace Greeley (1811—1872)
American jornalist and politician, founder and
editor of the "New York Tribune" [1841].

Traveling on a train in New York, Greeley
observed a fellow passenger reading the
"Sun". Always interested to discover what
made people buy the rival newspaper,
Greeley opened a conversation, at first
on general topics and then leading up
to the question, 'Why don't you read
the "Tribune"? It's a much more informative
paper than the "Sun".

I take the "Tribune" too,' replied the other
man. 'I use it to wipe my arse with.'

'Keep it up,' said Greeley, 'and eventually
you'll have more brains in your arse than
you have in your head.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Trying to determine what is going on in the world
by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time
by watching the second hand of a clock.
--Ben Hecht (1893—1964)
American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter.
_A Child of the Century_, p. 331 [1954]

Editor: A person employed on a newspaper, whose business
it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the
chaff is printed.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
_The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba
and the Bunch on Rainy Days_, p. 46 [1914]

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The basis of our government being the opinion of
the people, the very first object should be to keep
that right; and were it left to me to decide whether
we should have a government without newspapers,
or newspapers without a government, I should not
hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington [16 January 1787].


To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a
newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful,
I should answer, 'by restraining it to true facts & sound
principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few
subscribers. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of
the press could not more completely deprive the nation
of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution
to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen
in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being
put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state
of misinformation is known only to those who are in
situations to confront facts within their knowledge with
the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over
the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers,
live & die in the belief that they have known something of
what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas
the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true
a history of any other period of the world as of the present,
except that the real names of the day are affixed to their
fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them,
such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been
a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion
of Europe to his will, etc., etc., but no details can be relied
on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper
is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he
who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind
is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing
will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to John Norvell [14 June 1807], in Andrew Adgate Lipscomb and
Albert Ellery Bergh (eds.) _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ [1905].


I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's [Richmond Enquirer],
and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the
only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Nathaniel Macon [12 January 1819],
in Andrew Adgate Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh (eds.)
_The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ [1905].

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To read the front pages, you might conclude that
Americans are mostly out for themselves, venal,
grasping, and mean-spirited. The front pages have
room only for defense contractors who cheat and
politicians with their hands in the till. But you can't
travel the back roads very long without discovering
a multitude of gentle people doing good for others
with no expectation of gain or recognition. The
everyday kindness of the back roads more than
makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
--Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.
_On the Road with Charles Kuralt_ [1985]

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We must get rid of our arrogant assumption that it
is the masses who can be led by the nose. As far
as I can make out, the shoe is on the other foot.

The only people who are really the dupes of their
favorite newspapers are the intelligentsia. It is
they who read leading articles: the poor read the
sporting news, which is mostly true.

--C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (1898—1963)
British scholar and novelist.
_Present Concerns: Essays by C. S. Lewis_ [1986], "Private Bates" [1944]


I never read the papers. Why does anyone? They're
nearly all lies, and one has to wade through such
reams of verbiage and "write up" to find out even
what they're saying.
--C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (1898—1963)
British scholar and novelist.
_Letters to an American Lady_ [1967], "26 October 1955"

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We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety
beclouds the future; we expect some
new disaster with each newspaper we
read.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861-65].
Speech [19 May 1856].

^

In 2003 the "Modesto Bee" (CA) blundered wonderfully.
This is the correction which ran the following day:

"Gustav Mahler will not play with the Stockton Symphony this
season, as reported on Page E-5 on Sunday. He died in 1911."

--"New Yorker" [17 March 2003]

^

Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts
are lost forever, even to the protagonists.
--Norman Mailer (1923—2007)
American author, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
_Esquire_ (mag.) [June 1960]

The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the
intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the
fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of
a high-school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid
valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Quoted in "L.A. Times" [6 September 1998].

Whenever I see a newspaper I think of the poor trees.
As trees they provide beauty, shade, and shelter. But
as paper all they provide is rubbish.
--Yehudi Menuhin (1916—1999)
American-born British violinist.
1982 interview, as quoted in Jonathon Green (ed.)
_Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations_ [1982].

Exclusives aren't what they used to be. We
tend to put 'exclusive' on everything just to
annoy other papers. I once put 'exclusive'
on the weather by mistake.
--Piers Morgan (b. 1965)
British newspaper editor.
In "Independent" [14 March 1999].

If the newspapers of a country are filled with good
news, the jails will be filled with good people.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927—2003)
American scholar and politician.
Quoted in "The Illustrated Weekly of India" [16-22 October 1988].

[When asked why he had allowed Page 3 of "The Sun" to develop:]
I don't know. The editor did it when I was away.
--Rupert Murdock (b. 1931)
Australian-born American publisher.
In "Guardian" [25 February 1994].

A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of
advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations.
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared
than a hundred thousand bayonets.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804-15].
Attributed in "The Leisure Hour" (weekly mag.) [10 March 1853].

The power of the press is very great, but
not so great as the power of suppress.
--Lord Northcliffe (1865—1922)
British newspaper proprietor.
Office message "Daily Mail" [1918],
in Reginald Rose & Geoffrey Harmsworth _Northcliffe_ [1959].

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It will be my earnest aim that the "New York Times"
give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive
form, in language that is permissible in good society,
and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned
through any other medium. To give the news
impartially, without fear of favor, regardless of party,
sect, or interest involved; to make the columns of
the "New York Times" a forum for the consideration
of all public questions of public importance, and, to
that end, to invite intelligent discussion from all shades
of opinion.
--Adolph S. Ochs (1858—1935)
Publisher of The New York Times.
Salutatory in the "New York Times" [18 August 1896].


All the news that's fit to print.
--Adolph S. Ochs (1858—1935)
Publisher of The New York Times.
"N.Y. Times" [25 October 1896]

-

-

"It is a great paper. But it has one defect."

"What is that?"

"It never stands by its friends."

"A newspaper should have no friends," Pulitzer replied
sharply.

"I think it should," the judge answered just as sharply.

"If that is your opinion," Pulitzer said, "I wouldn't make
you one of my trustees if you gave me a million dollars."

--Joseph Pulitzer (1847—1911)
Hungarian-born American newpaper publisher.
In a 1904 conversation with Morgan K. Stanley,
quoted in Don Carlos Seitz _Joseph Pulitzer_ [1924].

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Newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate
between a bicycle accident and the collapse of
civilisation.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
_Too True to Be Good_ [1931], as quoted in Robert Andrews
_The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_ [1993].

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous —
licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I
ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to
look into a newspaper.
--Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751—1816)
Anglo-Irish dramatist.
_The Critic_, I, i [1779]

I will never again command an army in America
if we must carry along paid spies. I will banish
myself to some foreign country first.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Letter to his wife [28 January 1863].
(The "spies" were newspaper correspondents.)

Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.
--Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953),
Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from
the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death.
Speech [19 April 1923].

Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady,
but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
--attributed to Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.

I always turn to the sports pages first, which
records people's accomplishments. The front
page has nothing but man's failures.
--Earl Warren (1891—1974)
American jurist, the 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1953—1969].
Quoted in "Sports Illustrated" [22 July 1968].

There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us
in touch with the ignorance of the community.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
"The Critic as Artist", pt. II, in _Intentions_ [1891].

-

The duty of a newspaper is to comfort
the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
--anon.
(Sometimes attributed to Finley Peter Dunne.)

If you want to know what is really going on
in the world, read the business section.
The rest is just so much gossip.
--anon.

New York Post headline: "Headless body found in topless bar."

MACARTHUR FLIES BACK TO FRONT
--Headline, Daily Express [October 1944]

Man shoots neighbor with machete.
--Miami Herald


TOPICAL

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In the comprehensiveness of its coverage, accuracy of its reporting, the
precision of language, spelling, grammar, the Times was the best. No paper
came close. Its reporters, writers and editors were a constant presence at
Columbia, conducting classes, lecturing us on how to report, write, edit,
criticize, editorialize. We were a farm club for the Times, though only a
few of us ever made its roster. Among our faculty, it was considered the
acme of success in our profession to write for the Times. Even copy
editors on the "rim" of the copy desk were legends.

Though we were all in a master's program and some had edited college
papers, won national awards or worked professionally, it was still an
honor to be invited to serve as a copy boy at the Times.

Thus the sordid story of Times' star Jayson Blair is very big. For that story
exposed a total collapse of standards at the Times and revealed the
corruption of a once-great institution, which has prostituted itself to the
commands of "diversity." [...]

Over 42 months, the Times had had to publish 50 "corrections" of Jayson
Blair's stories. A year ago, metropolitan editor Jonathan Landman sent an
e-mail to all newsroom administrators. "We have to stop Jayson from writing
for the Times. Right now." Yet nothing was done, and soon Blair was being
granted plum assignments once given only to the most experienced of
reporters.

Who hired Jayson Blair? Who promoted him? Who protected him? And
why? Like the purloined letter, the answer is right in front of us. Jayson
Blair is black. The New York Times worships at the altar of "diversity."
So, Times editors cut him all the slack he needed. And Jayson Blair knew
how to snooker "progressives." Had Jayson Blair been a white graduate
of Bob Jones, he would not have lasted past his second correction.
Indeed, he would never have been hired. But he was, because Jayson
Blair was exactly the right color for the New York Times' guilty conscience.

The Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times is a case of the chickens
of affirmative action coming home to roost. [...]

Raines and his co-editors have made the voice of the American establishment
an object of mockery and ridicule in Middle America. Somewhere, today,
Spiro Agnew is smiling.

--Patrick Buchanan (b. 1938)
American journalist, author, and candidate for U.S. President.
"The Revenge of Spiro Agnew" [14 May 2003]




NEWSPEAK

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.

see: "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS"


Vertically challenged = short
Chronologically gifted = old
Terminally inconvenienced = dead
Involuntarily leisured = unemployed
Incompletely successful individual = a failure
Sobriety deprived = drunk
--Henry Beard and Chris Cerf,
_The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook_ [1992]

That's not a lie; it's a terminological inexactitude.
--Alexander Haig (1924—2010)
American Army officer and secretary of state.
[1983 television interview]. Winston Churchill had used
the phrase in a British election campaign in 1905.

-

The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the failure of
two (out of two) operational flight tests of the
cruise missile:

"The Air Force doesn't call the tests 'failures,' preferring to call
them 'partial successes' because the missiles worked 'flawlessly'
until they went off course."

--Erwin Knoll (1931—1994)
American journalist.
_No Comment_ [1984], "Look for the Silver Lining"

-

It would be insensitive to say Dennis Brown and
Ted Washington were fat when they reported to
[football training] camp. Let's just say they were
over-served.
--Scott Osler,
"San Francisco Chronicle," [11 August 1993]

Gentlemen. We are not retreating. We are
merely advancing in another direction.
--Oliver P. Smith (1893—1977)
American general.
News Conference, on the retreat of U.S. forces in North Korea [4 December 1950].


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