Read - Reading: Cold comfort for journalists by Bill Bennett (Bill Bennett)

"The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style."
Stella Gibbons,
Cold Comfort Farm
And then there is Blaise Pascal. In 1657 he wrote:
"Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte."

I agree wholeheartedly. Though I like the way that the first quote ties the idea more directly into journalism, the pedantic in me wants to attribute the broader original sentiment to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651). Doing this also allows us to frame all of humanity which seems to be having its own sort of problems–yet again.

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”