Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach’s St Matthew Passion on a ukulele: The instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience and for the performer.
BEN BAGDIKIANThe American audience, having been exposed to a narrowing range of ideas over the decades, often assumes that what they see and hear in the major media is all there is.
More Ben Bagdikian Quotes
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Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly.
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In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then.
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The safest way to ensure diversity of opinion is diverse ownership. But this ideal has been sacrificed by our government.
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To correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment.
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By now, the corporations that dominate our media, like alcoholic fat cats, treat this situation as theirs by right… Their concept of a diversity of views is the full range of politics and social values from center to far right.
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It is no way to maintain a lively marketplace of ideas, which is to say it is no way to maintain a democracy.
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Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification.
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The American audience, having been exposed to a narrowing range of ideas over the decades, often assumes that what they see and hear in the major media is all there is.
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No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate.
BEN BAGDIKIAN