“There are some cases where you want to afflict the comfortable, and there are other cases where you want to comfort the afflicted.”
Katie Couric on the journalist’s job
Interview on The Tim Ferriss Show
According to a Poynter article by David Shedden the roots of that sentiment go back to a one-act play with this line “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But Shedden writes that original version of that quote appeared in the 1902 book Observations by Mr. Dooley by the Chicago newspaperman Peter Finley Dunne (1867-1936):
“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”
P.S. Heard Couric’s quote this morning and thought that movies—along with being able to entertain—also have the ability to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. The Shawshank Redemption and The Florida Project are two different movies that come to mind.