(Penguin Books)
Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jem Bartholomew, 10/6/25
Headline: “Unbelievable Stupidities”
Subhead: “How the press can rise to the moment.”
“In April 1944, in one of his early Tribune columns, George Orwell described the feeling of coming across a newspaper from before the outbreak of World War II, which at the time had been raging for almost five years, and ‘marvelling at its almost unbelievable stupidity.’
“The stupidity that Orwell saw was a naive disregard—or in some cases a willful downplaying—of the danger signs of the coming global war. . .”
“. . .Ten years from now, or eighty years from now, what might future observers look back on as the media’s ‘unbelievable stupidities’? Will they think the press of today rose to the moment? . . .”
Read the full article at:
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/unbelievable-stupidities.php