My hunch? Not quite there yet…

I have long argued the rather unori­ginal pos­i­tion that journalism’s mis­sion to inform has its roots in reli­gious ‘infotain­ment’ both pop­u­lar and intel­lec­tual — mor­al­ising edit­or­i­als replaced mor­al­ising ser­mons, etc.

But I’ve been strug­gling to express why that mis­sion seems such a recur­rent trope in his­tory. The use of stor­ies for enter­tain­ing and moral pur­poses is clear as early as Ugar­itic, Akka­dian and Homeric myths. Con­tinue read­ing →