Trouble agreeing with this quote

‘It is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’  - attributed to H.L. Mencken (see history of this at the bottom)

I heard this quote a little while back used by a radio host who seemed to put a lot of credence in it and indicated that a lot of journalists subscribe to this thought and it didn’t sit well with me. I think it gives too much credit to the media and presents the idea that the media is smart enough to identify who is afflicted and who should be afflicted. Perhaps in Mencken’s day this was the case but I think nowadays this type of judgment is based more on a personal bias of the reporter, or the editor or from pressure by a political party on the publisher to spread a party line.

It is also shortsighted in that it proposes that comfort is a solution for the afflicted. Comfort doesn’t solve problems. It makes people feel better for a short time but it doesn’t look for solutions. A better solution is needed for the afflicted but I think this quote points out that the media can be manipulated or redirected by a platitude or a bromide if used enough.

If the media truly wanted to help the afflicted they would look for ways to get the afflicted back on their feet and not encourage them to live off the government. Seeing welfare related items as a solution is just bringing comfort and is not a true solution. The media should deal in the truth and not continue to promote hearsay or propaganda or opinions that are espoused as a solution by one side.

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Source –  Mike’s writing workshop and newsletter
http://mikeswritingworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/03/comfort-afflicted-and-afflict.html

Sunday, March 7, 2010

"Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." - The History

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. “In the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, an H.L. Mencken-like newspaper editor says, ‘It is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’

Credit for this credit gets passed around. In his 1942 quotation collection, Mencken attributed the saying as ‘author unidentified’ – although Mencken himself is sometimes thought to have been that author. (He was prone to quoting himself anonymously.) Four decades before Mencken’s collection was published, however, Finley Peter Dunne wrote this observation by his philosophizing bartender, Mr. Dooley: “The newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis force an’ th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead and’ roasts thim aftherward.”