Monday, September 30, 2024

Journalistic Tradition

 I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but . . .  according to various "party lines."

- George Orwell, "Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War"

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