Liberty’s Pesty Shadow
“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is, however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper’s ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.”
—Fisher Ames (1758-1808), Massashusetts statesman, 1807
(Thanks to alert WORDster Joseph Benham)
(Thanks to alert WORDster Joseph Benham)
Query
This from a faithful WORDster, seeking assistance with a Quindlen quote. I have my own ideas, but would be interested if the rest of the Faithful would like to take a whack at it. Reply to me, or post directly to the “comments” at the end of this post.
Hi there,
I have to do a translation assignment but cannot understand this quote? Could you please help to clarify it?
“Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.” – Anna Quindlen
Thank you for your help and thanks for continuing to send the interesting and useful journalism opinions everyday.
Regards,
Thu
PS
This from a Facebook Post yesterday:
Overheard in the Newsroom #1686: Home-school kid on tour of newsroom to copy editors/paginators: “So basically... your job is a bunch of clicking.”
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Hi Ted --
ReplyDeleteTaking a crack at the Quindlen quote -- I am a former daily newspaper reporter at a small suburban daily outside of Detroit, Mich. --
I see it as being a reporter is in your blood -- a (I think) pleasant diseas to have -- I've been doing other communications work for many years, but being a reporter was still the best job ever --until my current stint at NOAA.
cheers
jana goldman
NOAA public affairs officer
Easy. It's equating "reporter" with "leper."
ReplyDeleteP.
That Quindlen quote reminds me that people used to say that the AP wasn't a news agency, it was a religion -- because many staffers were so dedicated that they saw it as a calling rather than just a job. I was one of them, and the 13 years that I spent with the AP were the proudest of my 59-plus in this racket.
ReplyDeleteQuindlen was saying that our dedication is a sort of mania that mystifies the rest of the world. When I say that I've been shot at, jailed, tear-gassed, shoved-around, threatened and cussed-out -- and I wouldn't have missed any of that -- people often shake their heads and look as if they expect men in white coats to show up at any minute and carry me off.
Joseph
Since "diagnosis" is the identification of a disease, one might assume that the Quindlen quotation means that to be a reporter is to be afflicted with a chronic illness (journalism?) of sorts, i.e., to be a reporter is, ipso facto (and bearing in mind the nuance between illness and sickness), to be sick, sick, sick.
ReplyDeleteJavan
P.S. Under the heading Sad but True, the Facebook posting made my week! Clickety-clack.
I interpret Anna's quote to mean that reporters are the type of people who are born with a desire to unearth news and share it with an audience. We all know neighbors of this ilk. Some are just fortunate enough to get paid to do so with a much larger audience.
ReplyDeleteDiane
I believe that Quindlen is providing us with a public perception of Journalists. Depending on the circumstance of the "story" a reporter may be viewed as an educated writer (ie: occupation) with a propencity for truth and a talent for wordsmithing. A journalist could also be viewed as an infectious vampire with OSD committed to picking at every scabbed over wound of our personal, business, and political lives until we are bled dry and left to die and absorb the canary droppings upon the pages of yesterday's news.
ReplyDeleteWow. Are we SURE that's from 202 years ago? Sounds like yesterday.
ReplyDelete--ann
“Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.” --Anna Quindlen***
ReplyDeleteQuindlen intended to say, I believe, that journalism is an affliction, and its practitioners are addicted to it. If so, I would disagree with her in one respect: Journalists are many, but not all are afflicted. Only the good ons are.
Hugh
Glad to see the Word hitting my RSS reader again. The summer is reduced to mindless drivel without these daily insights.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hugh! I originally started school with my major being biology (still love the science classes). But as things in my life progressed, I found I had an overwhelming draw towards the media and the ability that the media possess to influence the world's population for both the good and the negative.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a diagnosis like schizophrenia or Swine Flu. If you’re a reporter, it’s just in your blood…
ReplyDelete--Amy
So, could it be understood as: Being a reporter is having an inborn passion for the job, it is like an obsession and having a lot of diagnostics?
ReplyDeleteThu
Re the quindlen quote:
ReplyDeleteDrawing on my own experience, as well as what I know of my mother's and grandfather's lives, being a reporter is a diagnosis of a personality quirk that causes one to be terminally nosy, and like the elephant's child, filled with "'satiable curtiosity."
My mother and my grandfather and grandmother (my father's parents) all came into the world knowing that the newspaper life was the only one for them and dedicated themselves single-mindedly to achieving that goal.
--Mark D
Seems like Anna Quindlen, self-diagnosed reporter, author and sage, is letting us know that a reporter, in doing his or her job, is explaining or helping solve a problem. Too many "reporters" today want to inflict their own interpretation of events on us. When I reported news, two words that could NEVER find their way into a story were "I think ..." or "I believe ..." It explains why real reporters are the way they are. "Oh, you're a reporter ... that explains it."
ReplyDeleteRe the Quindlen quote: A reporter's job description is to seek out and disseminate the truth; people most drawn to the profession have a need to do that in their soul.
ReplyDelete--Lois
Thank you all for sharing your understanding of this quote.
ReplyDeleteThu