Never Tolerate Injustice, Always Fight Demagogues
"I know that my retirement will make no difference in its [my newspaper's] cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
Joseph Pulitzer retirement speech, April 10, 1907, as reported in the St. Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch (April 11, 1907).
I came by this wonderful quote in the prologe of a biography of Hunter S Thompson (God almighty how we could use Hunter now) I thought it would be the perfect quote to kick this blog off with. Not only does this lay out a doctrine which all people of integrity, character and morality should strive to live by but it also seems so incredibly, unfortunately, timely.
This week the integrity of the free press--the entire institution of journalism has been derided as conspiratorial, unethical and insidious, thus undermining the public's faith in our government watchdogs, and laying the groundwork for future dismissial of those pesky facts that the free press may come up with.
But what are facts? You've got your facts and I've got my alternative facts, there are some facts over there that nobodies picked up and are probably going bad.We are in the post fact era, apparently like the points in "Whose Line is it Anyway" the facts just don't matter, at least this is certainly true according to the Gingrich, who lives just north of Whoville, and says that its about how people feel, not about the statistics that those bean counting liberal theoreticians come up with (by which of course we assume he means the FBI) that we should base public policy on.
--and there we have it the core reason for this insane charade, the abandonment of critical thinking and reason for passions and feelings are what allowed a "madman" (Louisana Gov. Bobby Jindals (R) said it not me)
who by "employing the kind of hateful rhetoric and exploiting the insecurities of this nation, in much the same way that allowed Hitler and Mussolini to rise to power" (again not me Gov. Christie (R) said it!)
The devoted cult of Donald Trump made up of alt-right pseudo-nazis, the illiterate bible thumping south and genuinely fearful-misinformed, need very little stoking to set their conspiracy fires ablaze. Its truly a through the looking glass world in which Trump who is genuinely one of the most dishonest people in recent political history can call the media the most dishonest people ever, and whose Kremlin buddies disseminated endless KGB style misinformation, the real Fake News, can appropriate the term and start calling long standing news stations fake news.
This week the integrity of the free press--the entire institution of journalism has been derided as conspiratorial, unethical and insidious, thus undermining the public's faith in our government watchdogs, and laying the groundwork for future dismissial of those pesky facts that the free press may come up with.
But what are facts? You've got your facts and I've got my alternative facts, there are some facts over there that nobodies picked up and are probably going bad.We are in the post fact era, apparently like the points in "Whose Line is it Anyway" the facts just don't matter, at least this is certainly true according to the Gingrich, who lives just north of Whoville, and says that its about how people feel, not about the statistics that those bean counting liberal theoreticians come up with (by which of course we assume he means the FBI) that we should base public policy on.
--and there we have it the core reason for this insane charade, the abandonment of critical thinking and reason for passions and feelings are what allowed a "madman" (Louisana Gov. Bobby Jindals (R) said it not me)
who by "employing the kind of hateful rhetoric and exploiting the insecurities of this nation, in much the same way that allowed Hitler and Mussolini to rise to power" (again not me Gov. Christie (R) said it!)
The devoted cult of Donald Trump made up of alt-right pseudo-nazis, the illiterate bible thumping south and genuinely fearful-misinformed, need very little stoking to set their conspiracy fires ablaze. Its truly a through the looking glass world in which Trump who is genuinely one of the most dishonest people in recent political history can call the media the most dishonest people ever, and whose Kremlin buddies disseminated endless KGB style misinformation, the real Fake News, can appropriate the term and start calling long standing news stations fake news.
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