For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.

The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.