Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the tendency of journalists to prioritize laziness over the necessity of competence in their work.
Kingsley Amis highlights a concerning trend in journalism where laziness has taken precedence over incompetence. By suggesting that laziness is the 'chief characteristic' of the profession, Amis implies that many journalists may choose the easier path of not investigating thoroughly or reporting diligently, thereby undermining the integrity and quality of journalism as a whole.
In practice
In a discussion on the decline of journalistic standards, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for integrity in media.
When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.
One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.
Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.
He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic.
Don't go outside your house to see flowers. My friend, don't bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. That will do for a place to sit. Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty inside the body and out of it, before gardens and after gardens.
No idea is conceived in our mind independent of our five senses [i.e., no idea is divinely inspired].
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you.
You're a religious man, ... You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
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