The Blog

2021-

2021-07-18 j
THE STATE OF THE DISUNION X

It was Kipling who quipped about journalists having ‘power without responsibility’. He then added the phrase ‘the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages’, which was repeated by Stanley Baldwin, not Stanley Johnson. Comparing hacks to harlots is, of course, unfair to the girls. Some of them have risen to the highest offices in the past due to their discretion, whereas the only journalist I know who made it to the top is our very own Boris. Hookers are more to be trusted than hacks, insisted my late father, who also claimed that whores enjoyed a seismographic alertness to future winners which far exceeds that of the hacks.

The definition of the word ‘prostitute’ is a man or a woman who indulges in sexual intercourse for money. But more to the point, it is someone who debases his or her talent in the pursuit of money, and this extends to writers, painters and of course journalists. Needless to say, newspapers and TV networks also fall into this category, from the BBC and NBC to the biggest one of all, CNN.

— Taki

______________________

Permission is hereby granted to any and all to copy and paste any entry on this page and convey it electronically along with its URL,
______________________