“The next pontiff must unite an increasingly globalized church paralyzed by scandal and mismanagement under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age.”For example:
“The next governor must unite an increasingly globalized state paralyzed by scandal and mismanagement under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age.”
Fournier's noble purpose was to criticize institutions in all walks of life, from governments to businesses to charitable organizations, in their failure promote their purpose rather than the power of the organization. He is losing hope in our big organizations.
I have a more modest interest: to save time and effort on the part of the reading and writing public. Can we make one sentence that we can just re-use for every news story? Think of the time savings in this age where time savings is our mantra. I modified the NYT's sentence a bit:
The next [noun] must unite an increasingly contentious [noun] paralyzed by mismanagement and misinformation under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age.
Let's give it an ultimate test of sorts right away:
"The next sentence must unite an increasingly contentious readership paralyzed by mismanagement and misinformation under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age."
1 comment:
It seems to me that there are two ways to run with this.
One is to say that the Fournier observation arises from certain universalities in the human condition. Many years ago Huston Smith said this about institutions, also with an eye toward religion: "Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality."
On the other hand, it may be that journalists just tend to be lazy or unimaginative or not very perceptive, and resort to placing almost any event or development into about 4 or 5 narratives.
I suspect that the latter is closer to the truth.
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