8 Quotes by Brooke Gladstone

Reality can really tax your imagination.

Getting history right is pretty much the most important thing a citizen can do in a nation at war with itself--as ours was. And is.

Objectivity works to repel the attacks of critics, like a kind of ethical pepper spray.

There's a long-standing debate in the media biz over whether the news outlets should give the public what it wants, or what it needs. This debate presupposes that media execs actually know what it wants or needs. And that there actually is a unitary "public.

Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage. Also present was everything we admire and require: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power.

Citizens may recoil from paying for the news, he noted, because they see it as a natural right. But in the absence of consumer coin, the media must be fueled by advertisers seeking consumers and investors pursuing profit. Novelty and drama pay to keep the presses rolling, and so the “news” that supposedly informs reason becomes the dog wagged by its own tail.

There’s a long-standing debate in the media biz over whether the news outlets should give the public what it wants, or what it needs. This debate presupposes that media execs actually know what it wants or needs. And that there actually is a unitary “public.

Even if each of our realities is unique, our common cultures and environments ensure that we share some fundamental principles. That is what enables consensus, and that is what is under attack. By degrading the very notion of shared reality, Trump has disabled the engine of democracy. As.