John Leonard Quotes
blabbercasters
John Leonard, 1936-2008, Critic & Essayist, Description of Political Talk Show Hosts, "Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind", The Nation, November 22, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
After Eisenhower’s successful use of TV, in 1952 and 1956, the next election—1960—had a plethora of TV ads which were mostly talking heads and in addition pundits were appearing on TV in the same format.
Even as late as the 1970s most media organizations did not feel any inhibition about having a spokesperson for a political movement or candidate comment about statements that were clearly untrue. The constant political criticism of the media produced this change and no matter how absurd or false a political statement is, most media will have a spokesperson for the lie appear on the program to repeat the lie. Both political parties are thereby encouraged to exaggerate or even lie as they will never by exposed by trusted journalists and can reduce all falsehoods to a “he says, she says.”
John Leonard (born 1965) is an Australian poet.