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Comment by jlangenauer | Hacker News Reader

I'm reminded of George Orwell's quote:

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

Orwell is wrong, because most of public relations (and propaganda more generally) is printing what someone else does not want printed, too.

Orwell isn't wrong in this case... because the quote wasn't Orwell. Who actually came up with it is lost to the mists of time https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/20/news-suppress/

Orwell did state a similar notion, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear", in the preface to Animal Farm.

The liberty quote means something quite different, and quite controversial. Contrast against "Freedom of speech does require anyone to listen"

I think in this case it's best to attribute the quote and the Orwell attribution to Michael Scott and call it a day :)

Forgive me but that is pedantic.

You know exactly what Orwell means.

I have no idea what the (probably not Orwell, as others have pointed out) author meant if it wasn't what the words say; I assume, though, that they meant exactly what they said.

Perhaps something like "journalism is revealing what someone wants to be hidden" would satisfy a stricter reading at the cost of being less punchy?

EDIT: On starting to read the article, I quite like the slogan "comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable" that they mention.

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