Daily Inspiration Quote by Joey Skaggs

A con artist’s cleanest trick is honesty about the con. Joey Skaggs, a performance artist who made a career out of staging hoaxes to bait the press, delivers a line that’s basically a trap with a warning label. “Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn’t trust me” is less self-deprecation than a diagnostic test: if you take him at face value, you’ve already failed.

The intent is mischievous but pointed. Skaggs isn’t confessing to being unreliable so much as daring reporters to prove they’re not lazy. The phrase “worth his or her salt” invokes old-school professional pride; he’s appealing to journalism’s self-image as skeptical, verification-obsessed, allergic to being played. Then he undercuts that myth with a wink: plenty of outlets will trust him anyway, because the news cycle rewards speed, novelty, and a good headline more than it rewards due diligence.

The subtext is a critique of institutional incentives. Skaggs’ hoaxes worked not because journalists are individually foolish, but because the system is built to accept convenient narratives, anonymous tips, and ready-made “characters” who can talk in quotable sound bites. By positioning himself as an obviously untrustworthy source, he exposes how often credibility is treated as a vibe rather than a process.

Context matters: Skaggs is famous for manufacturing “events” that force the media to reveal its own seams. The line is a mirror held up to a profession that sells certainty, even when it hasn’t earned it.