“There is a huge difference between journalism and advertising. Journalism aspires to truth. Advertising is regulated for truth. I’ll put the accuracy of the average ad in this country up against the average news story any time.”
- Jef Richards
More Jef Richards Quotes – Advertising Guru
Thanks to Shane Brooks for bringing this quote to my attention. Shane always finds the goodies.
I know longer think journalism “aspires to truth.” Today, journalism aspires to sensationalism; i.e., “If it bleeds, it leads.” Yes, there are journalists to aspire to truth but the recent Murdoch scandal, the Valerie Plame incident, Wikileaks, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and many other TV and internet “scoops” are/were about sensationalism even when there was a grain of truth in them. William Randolph and his Yellow Journalism were the first step onto a slippery slope.