“The stock price is a hollow god”
John Sawyer Carroll (1942-2015) of the Baltimore (MD)
won the National Press Foundation’s Editor of the Year Award for 1998. Carroll said in a 1999 acceptance speech:
“Today, if you read the regional and local press—the papers that reach most Americans—you’ll sense something missing. That crucial ingredient is faith—a widespread confidence that what we do matters. Today’s journalists are constantly being reminded that they are functionaries of business, yet they know in their hearts that the stock price is a hollow god. They believe—perhaps quixotically, under some owners—that they work for the entire community, not just the stockholders. They sense that newspaper work can, and should be, a wonderfully satisfying and entertaining way to engage the world, and that in a free society there is no mightier sword than the written word.”
The line “the stock price is a hollow god” was recalled in June 2015 after his death.
Wikipedia: John Carroll (Journalist)
John Sawyer Carroll (January 23, 1942 – June 14, 2015) was an American journalist and newspaper editor, known for his work as the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun.
American Journalism Review
From AJR, April 1999
Keeping the Faith
By John Carroll
John Carroll is the editor in chief of the Baltimore Sun.
(...)
“Today, if you read the regional and local press—the papers that reach most Americans—you’ll sense something missing. That crucial ingredient is faith—a widespread confidence that what we do matters. Today’s journalists are constantly being reminded that they are functionaries of business, yet they know in their hearts that the stock price is a hollow god. They believe—perhaps quixotically, under some owners—that they work for the entire community, not just the stockholders. They sense that newspaper work can, and should be, a wonderfully satisfying and entertaining way to engage the world, and that in a free society there is no mightier sword than the written word.”
—Baltimore Sun Editor John Carroll speaking in February while accepting the National Press Foundation’s Editor of the Year award
New York (NY) Times
John Carroll, Former Editor of Los Angeles Times, Dies at 73
By JONATHAN MAHLER JUNE 14, 2015
John S. Carroll, a widely admired newspaper editor who restored the reputation and credibility of The Los Angeles Times in the early 2000s even as he fought bitterly with the paper’s cost-conscious corporate parent, died on Sunday morning at his home in Lexington, Ky. He was 73.
(...)
“Today’s journalists are constantly being reminded that they are functionaries of business, yet they know in their hearts that the stock price is a hollow god,” Mr. Carroll said in accepting the National Press Foundation’s Editor of the Year award in 1998. “They sense that newspaper work can, and should, be a wonderfully satisfying and entertaining way to engage the world, and that in a free society there is no mightier sword than the written word.”
Twitter
John Nichols
@NicholsUprising
John Carroll, great @latimes editor who fought cuts & rejected corporatized “journalism,” has died at 73. “The stock price is a hollow god.”
11:01 AM - 14 Jun 2015
Twitter
Rick Wartzman
@RWartzman
John Carroll, RIP: Journalists have become “functionaries of business, yet they know in their hearts that the stock price is a hollow god.”
11:39 AM - 14 Jun 2015
Twitter
Deborah Solomon
@deborah_solomon Deborah Solomon retweeted The New York Times
John Carroll on the state of the newspaper biz: “the stock price is a hollow god,” Deborah Solomon added,
The New York Times @nytimes
The NYT obituary for John Carroll, former editor of @latimes http://nyti.ms/1QY9sLQ
4:15 PM - 14 Jun 2015
Twitter
Doyle McManus
@DoyleMcManus
John Carroll, a great editor and a great man, dead at 73. “The stock price is a hollow god,” he warned http://lat.ms/1Qxo4ae
4:43 PM - 14 Jun 2015