THOMAS GRIFFITH

Journalism is in fact history on the run.

Just to be seen strolling to or from a helicopter on the White House lawn, shouting an evasive answer to Sam Donaldson, must seem to the Reagans not quite satisfactory enough of a 7 PM presence, and this inane scene certainly galls the press.

Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often [they] operate a snack bar . . . and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.

Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.

They are servants to a fickle public; they must seize its attention by novelty, hold it by new injections of interest, and then move on to something else. A newspaper can risk boring its public at its own peril.

To the public, the press is not David among Goliaths; it has become one of the Goliaths, Big Media, a combination of powerful television networks, large magazine groups and newspaper chains that are near-monopolies.

Journalism constructs momentarily arrested equilibriums and gives disorder an implied order. That is already two steps from reality.

Anderson's muckraking is one of debatable ends constantly used to justify questionable works.

I wouldn't believe him if he said the sun came up in the east.

The news is staged, anticipated, reported, analyzed until all interest is wrung from it and abandoned for some new novelty.

I wouldn't believe him if he said the sun came up in the east.

Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.

Journalism is in fact history on the run.

Anderson's muckraking is one of debatable ends constantly used to justify questionable works.

The news is staged, anticipated, reported, analyzed until all interest is wrung from it and abandoned for some new novelty.

Journalism as theater is what TV news is.

He loved them and cared for them, and you don't kill kids that you love and care for.

Journalism constructs momentarily arrested equilibriums and gives disorder an implied order. That is already two steps from reality.

If journalism is sometimes inaccurate and often inadequate, ignorance would not be preferable.

They are servants to a fickle public; they must seize its attention by novelty, hold it by new injections of interest, and then move on to something else. A newspaper can risk boring its public at its own peril.

Just to be seen strolling to or from a helicopter on the White House lawn, shouting an evasive answer to Sam Donaldson, must seem to the Reagans not quite satisfactory enough of a 7 PM presence, and this inane scene certainly galls the press.

Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often [they] operate a snack bar . . . and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.

To the public, the press is not David among Goliaths; it has become one of the Goliaths, Big Media, a combination of powerful television networks, large magazine groups and newspaper chains that are near-monopolies.