Gadarene Swine

From "Breaking News, a Novel", by Robert MacNeil :

"But what I deplore, and what still sickens me - [...] - is broadcast news media behaving like the Gadarene swine. You remember, Christ sent evil spirits into a herd of pigs, and the maddened herd raced over a cliff and drowned. I think that, in our swollen numbers; in our new and insane competitiveness; in our rising desperation for ratings; our purient glee in discussing [...] sex life; in our rush to support ubsibstantiated rumor, leaks, and gossip; an evil spirit entered us, and we became that herd of maddened swine racing toward our own destruction."

"Now where does it stop? In the name of competition, every time a big or sensational story comes along, are we forced to be even more outrageous, more irresponsible, each time racheting up the excesses?"

Robert MacNeil was on the MacNeil Lehrer Report show for many years as a news anchor. He has captured the essence of what I saw happening to the news media. It's not Walter Cronkite anymore.

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