“Trying to determine what is going on in the world
by reading newspapers
is like trying to tell the time
by watching the second hand of a clock.”
by reading newspapers
is like trying to tell the time
by watching the second hand of a clock.”
Ben Hecht (1894-1964)
American author, screenwriter and dramatist
I worked for a big city
newspaper for 41 years, so I’m willing to jump right in and agree with Mr.
Hecht.
I’d love to know when he said
it. I’d say he was prescient, except that would imply that at some point prior
to 1964 what he said about newspapers wasn’t really true.
I doubt that.
American newspapers have been
profitable for more than 200 years, and the little known truth is that they
didn’t get profitable by selling news.
Newspapers have always made
lots of money by selling ads. Historically, the subscription price didn’t even
come close to paying for the cost of writing and printing the news. It’s not a
stretch to say that American newspaper readers have never been willing to
actually pay the economic cost of getting news.
In part, that’s because most of
the time, most newspapers haven’t really printed the full scope of the news
that was true and meaningful. For much of their history, many newspapers were
transparent organs of political parties or political ideologies.
OK, I guess the obits are an
exception….nearly always they’re true and it’s useful to know who died.
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