"The chore of a paper is to comfort the afflicted as well as to afflict the comfortable." I commencement heard that maxim dorsum inwards the mid-1980s, when I spent a brace of years equally an editorial author at the San Jose Mercury News. The maxim tended to come upwardly up inwards a province of affairs where the paper had written something that offended a soul alongside approximately ascendence as well as pull, similar a local politico or trouble concern executive, as well as nosotros felt a involve to stiffen our backbones. But fifty-fifty inside the walls of the newspaper, it seemed to me widely recognized that the amounts of both comfort as well as illness provided were oftentimes rather minor as well as limited. And of course, grim as well as straight-laced folks similar myself wondered how actual direct reporting of the tidings lucifer into that slogan.
But I late ran into the root of the saying, as well as it turns out that the maxim was non intended equally a defense forcefulness of of newspapers, only rather equally part of an ironic as well as sarcastic commentary almost the tidings media overreaching into individual affairs, pretending to live on to a greater extent than knowledgable than they are, as well as acting equally jurist as well as jury. The phrase comes from a 1902 seek titled "Newspaper Publicity" past times Finley Peter Dunne, who gained considerable fame inwards his fourth dimension past times writing equally "Mr. Dooley"--a made-up grapheme who was the prototypical Everyman speaking truth to power, as well as doing as well as thence inwards a heavy-handed as well as over-the-top Irish Gaelic dialect. Here's the relevant passage from Observations past times Mr. Dooley (1902):
Th' paper is watchin' most iv us fr'm th' cradle to th' grave an' befure an' afther. Whin I was a la-ad thrippin' continted over th' bogs iv Roscommon ne'er an iditor knew iv me beingness nor I iv his. ... Nowadays th' larceny is discovered live on a newspa-aper. Th' Pb pipage is dug upwardly inwards ye'er dorsum yard live on a rayporther who knew it was at that topographic point because he helped ye bury it. H5N1 homo knocks at ye'er dure arly wan mornin' an' ye respond inwards ye'er nighty. `In th' refer iv th constabulary I arrist ye,' says th' homo seizin' ye live on th' throat. `Who ar-re ye, ye cry?' `I'm a rayporther f'r th' Daily Slooth.' says he. `Photty grafter, create ye'er jooty.' Ye're hauled off inwards th' circylation railroad vehicle to th' paper office, where a con-fission is cook f'r ye to sign; ye're thried live on a jury iv th' staff, sintinced live on th' iditor-in-chief an' at tin o-clock Fri th' fatal thrap is sprung live on th' fatal thrapper iv th' fam'ly journal.
Th' paper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, conthrols th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an roasts thim aftherward. They receive t annything it don't plough its manus to fr'm explainin' th' docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin' saleratus biskit. Ye tin larn anny form iv data ye desire to inwards ye'er fav'rite paper almost ye'ersilf or annywan else. What th' Czar whispered to th' Imp'ror Willum whin they were alone. how to brand a silk lid out iv a wire matthress, how to settle th' coal sthrike, who to marry, how to larn on alongside ye'er married adult woman whin ye're married, what to feed th' babies, what physician to telephone proper substantive upwardly whin ye've fed thim equally directed,--all iv that ye'll discovery inwards th' pa-apers.
They used to tell a man's life was a shut book. So it is only it's an opened upwardly newspaper. Th' middle iv th' press is on ye befure ye commence to accept notice. Th' iditor obsarves th' stork hoverin' over th' roof iv 2978 B Ar-rchey Road an th' article he writes almost it has a wink inwards it. `Son an' heir arrives f'r th' Hon'rable Malachi Hinnissy,' says th' pa-aper befure ye 've finished th' dhrink alongside th' doctor."The media people who direct maintain repeated the slogan of comforting the afflicted as well as afflicting the comfortable mightiness reverberate on the irony of repurposing an assault on the media to serve equally a defense forcefulness of the media.
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