'Schism of the Soul'

'The period through which we are living presents itself as one of unmitigated confusion and disintegration: a period of paralyzing economic depressions, of unrestrained butcheries and enslavements, and of world-ravaging wars: a period whose evil fulfillments have betrayed all its beneficent promises. But behind all these phenomena of physical destruction we can detect an earlier and perhaps more fundamental series of changes: a loss of communion between classes and peoples, a breakdown in stable behavior, a loss of form and purpose in many of the arts, with a growing emphasis on the accidental and the trivial: in short, the earliest form of this crisis was an internal "schism of the soul," as Toynbee calls it, and a break up of the over-all pattern of meaning.'

(Lewis Mumford, The Condition of Man, 1944)

Typewriters, Bottles, Cigarettes

A eulogy for old-school newsrooms. [AJR]

Seed and Harvest

We know how it is with our contemporaries. A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies.

(James Anthony Froude, Caesar: a Sketch)

Meanwhile, in Kenya ...

'Each newspaper in Kenya is typically read by fourteen people, and those who can't afford to buy a paper sometimes "rent" one. My neighborhood news vendor charges the equivalent of thirteen cents for thirty minutes with one of the major dailies, all of which are in English. That compares with fifty cents to buy one, a significant sum even to office workers earning $20 a day, and out of reach for the far more numerous casual workers who generally earn no more than $2.' (Karen Rothmyer, A Passion for Print: Why newspapers are thriving in Kenya, CJR)

One or Two

It should be noted that the matter of one or two-sidedness bears no relationship to the degree of objectivity of the report. A one-sided report may be a relatively objective one and, in the same way, a two-sided report may totally lack objectivity.

[CJC, Volumes 20-21, 1978]

Dirty Laundry

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use . . .

Does Journalism Exist?

The full text of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's Hugh Cudlipp lecture.

Monumental speech.