If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the commercialization of media and the prioritization of profit over meaningful content.
Edward R. Murrow's quote reflects on the state of media and society, suggesting that significant and profound events, like a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ, may be rejected in favor of more commercially viable programming. This highlights a tension between spiritual or cultural significance and the capitalist motives that dominate entertainment and media choices today.
In practice
In a discussion about the pressures of commercial media, one might use this quote to illustrate a point about missed opportunities for meaningful programming.
We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
if only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.
I think Hefner himself wants to go down in history as a person of sophistication and glamour. But the last person I would want to go down in history as is Hugh Hefner.
Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.
When your inner mantra becomes 'How may I serve?' rather than 'What am I going to get?' and 'Who do I need to defeat?,' you start to see the unfolding of God in everything and everyone around you and you shift into higher consciousness.
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