A Quote by Tom Brokaw
People do not like to have their favorite myths of idols challenged and as a rule I think that the public does not like bad news.
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For a long period of time, the media covered rap music and hip hop the same way they cover a lot of black people, people of color, you know, the bad news happens to be news. They used to have these little stupid colloquialisms that pop up like, "You know what? No news is bad news!" They trick the masses into thinking that any news is great for you. And I just think that's a piece of crap.
The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, Im convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.
I set a rule that people weren't allowed to send good news unless they sent around an equal amount of bad news. We had to get a balanced picture. In fact, I kind of favored just hearing about the accounts we were losing because ... bad news is generally more actionable than good news.
I think I've had to work my entire life at reacting to bad news, 'cause my first tendency whenever bad news comes is to pretend like it's not that bad somehow. And, you know, if you can do that with your parents being executed, you can do that with almost anything.
I think of evolution as a myth, like the Norse myths, the Greek myths - anybody's myths. But it was created for a rational age.
Quentin Tarantino assistant called me and said: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is you got the part, the bad news is you have to do it." I was like: "Oh Jesus, when am I supposed to do this?" I was prepping Hostel.
Back in the '70s, like one of my favorite movies ever was 'The Bad News Bears', and that was a kids' movie, but I don't think of it that way. I think of it as just a great movie because Walter Matthau was so funny and so harsh with those kids.
I think we’re at the stage where
we’re not musicians but not idols
either. In a way, we also feel bad for being called idols
People like to be challenged. Most people that I know who are any good at life like to be challenged.
Well-reported news is a public good; bad news is bad for everyone.
The challenges are different to different kinds of magazines. News magazines, magazines that have high frequency and news, are going to be challenged, heavily challenged, not just by the Internet but by the whole 24-hour news cycle which has just been getting enhanced.
We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.
People come into public life for different reasons. None of us are ego-challenged, I think, or we probably wouldn't be doing what we're doing, so if anyone tells you that they don't like the sound of the applause and the ego gratification, I don't think they're being straight with you.
The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.
I think God isn't interested in intervening every time some little bad thing happens. God is interested in getting the message of good news and love and comfort and hope across through people like us, ordinary people, or extraordinary people like Bono.
I think finally good writing gets out there, and people like it, and bad writing doesn't. Well, no. Bad writing does get out there 'cause some people like it.
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