A thought as school starts. . .
“If you are not in awe of what you don’t know, you shouldn’t be a journalist.”
—Sandy Close, executive editor and director, New America Media, 1995
(Thanks to alert WORDster Betty Medsger)
And that’s the WORD.
Additional wisdom from Uncle Jay Explains the News.
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Welcome back WORD! Good WORD choice today. Close may have seen or performed in a play called "The Curious Savage" by John Patrick, which was first produced in 1950. It is well within the scope of high school casts. An old lady (Ethel P. Savage) left rich by her late husband wants to use his money to set up a kind of MacArthur Foundation for people with fantastic dreams and loose connections to reality. Her greedy step children sent her to "The Cloisters," a "resident care facility" for the mentally unbalanced. There's a line, "I am awed only by the magnitude of what I don't know." It continues to be accurate. Have you reprised the whole "ignorance is bliss" quote lately? That might be timely. --Janet
ReplyDeleteTED: Great to have you back in harness.
ReplyDeleteToday's word reminds me of some of my favorite old aphorisms: "If you think the cost of learning is high, try ignorance." "Ignorance is not bliss, anymore than innocence is a virtue."
As for journalists, they should know enough to know what they don't know of any subject about which they write.
--PETER BEARSE, International Consulting Economist and Candidate for Congress, NH CD 1