"In my day a reporter who took..." - Quote by H L Mencken
In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes.
More by H L Mencken
“The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.”
“Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.”
“The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.”
More on Journalism
“American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.”
“I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.”
“But my point is that competitive eating is a real sport, and I considered taking it up. But when I thought about what this would mean sitting around for hours, stuffing my face with unhealthy food I realized it was basically the same thing as journalism.”
More on Media
“Fancy cutting down all those beautiful trees...to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilisation.”
“Media people should have long noses like an elephant to smell out politicians, mayors, prime ministers and businessmen. We need to know the reality, the good and the bad, not just the appearance.”
“How are children supposed to learn to act like adults, when so much of what they see on television shows adults acting like children?”