1 A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question:
3 If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save
4 a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning
5 photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use?
9 A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county,
10 a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three
11 kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring
12 says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that
13 she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young
14 felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at
15 her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings.
16 -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861
18 A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe.
19 Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we
20 never reveal our sauce."
22 A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
23 on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
24 game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
25 pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
26 along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
27 heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
28 around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
29 direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
30 paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
31 colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
32 fall over gently onto their backs.
33 -- Audobon Society Magazine
35 A New Way of Taking Pills
36 A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and
37 having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with
38 small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks
39 will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment.
40 -- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861
42 A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure.
43 -- Arthure "Bugs" Baer
45 A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a
46 watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he
47 looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his
48 tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were
49 they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led
50 by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged,
51 killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting
52 could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle
53 emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of
54 the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."
56 "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
57 out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
60 A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new
61 bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk."
62 -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 13, 1860
64 Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
67 After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with
68 the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only
69 the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of
70 any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep
71 around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page...
73 The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The
74 Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all.
75 But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line
76 or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie
77 burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck.
78 They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental
79 woman who seemed to be in control."
81 Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight
83 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
85 All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after
86 the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
88 An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.
91 "... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
93 -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words
95 And that's the way it is...
98 Earth Destroyed by Solar Flare -- film clips at eleven.
100 Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
102 Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that
103 rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge.
107 Intelligence of mankind decreasing.
108 Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....
110 ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
111 and you would not have been informed.
113 I only know what I read in the papers.
116 I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.
119 I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens
120 who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known
121 something of what has been passing in their time.
124 If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it
125 because I can't swim.
128 If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich,
131 In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
132 Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
135 Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor
136 two opposing ideas in his mind?
137 -- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters
139 Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism
140 in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with
141 the ignorance of the community.
144 Journalism is literature in a hurry.
147 Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it.
149 Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who
150 can't talk for people who can't read.
153 My father was a God-fearing man, but he never missed a copy of the
154 New York Times, either.
157 Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
158 -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977
160 \a\a\a *** NEWSFLASH ***
162 Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!
164 "No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper."
165 -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
166 taken over by Rupert Murdoch
168 Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%. And of
169 TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a blazer.
171 Once Again From the Top
173 Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously
174 reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman
175 in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and
176 lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular
177 homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that
178 he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on
179 George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published
180 inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the
181 lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with
182 vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson.
183 The Herald regrets the errors."
184 -- "The Progressive", March, 1987
186 One of the signs of Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he once had a
190 People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
191 press than people who are just funny and smart.
192 -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
194 Photographing a volcano is just about the most miserable thing you can do.
196 [Who has clearly never tried to use a PDP-10. Ed.]
198 Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him
199 Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed,
200 and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell
201 every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about
202 getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console
203 me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under.
204 Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem
205 to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that.
206 No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or
207 maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On
208 the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as
209 whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last
210 possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car.
211 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
213 The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
216 The American Dental Association announced today that most plaque tends
217 to form on teeth around 4:00 PM in the afternoon.
221 The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating
222 people to approach printed matter with distrust.
224 "The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The
225 Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The
226 National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running
230 The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a
231 plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal
232 other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable.
233 -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On"
235 The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage
238 "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?"
239 "NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?"
243 This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had there been an
244 actual emergency, then you would no longer be here.
246 This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
247 actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?
249 This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you
250 would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go.
252 Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
253 those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking up.
254 -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
256 You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
257 anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
258 you can always change the channel.
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