Happiness Quote by Margaret Carlson

There is a cold little joke baked into Carlson's sentence: exposing corruption is both the job and, perversely, part of the entertainment. The line lands because it refuses the self-flattering fantasy of the watchdog press as a pure disinfectant. Instead, it admits the transactional reality of commentary culture: outrage is a commodity, and consumption doesn't guarantee comprehension.

The sharpest move is "whatever amount". Carlson isn't describing a single scandal but a scalable, almost industrial pipeline of wrongdoing and disclosure. That sets up the bleak punchline: "half my readers will block it out". Not argue back, not fact-check, not even change their minds - just mentally swipe away. The subtext is a diagnosis of motivated reasoning before it became a TED Talk staple: people don't read to learn; they read to maintain a worldview.

Then comes the most telling phrase: "a frisson of joy". She doesn't accuse readers of loving corruption; she suggests they enjoy the sensation of being briefly electrified by it. It's the dopamine hit of "Can you believe this?" without the burden of "What do we do now?" That word "frisson" elevates the critique by making it intimate and bodily. Politics becomes a kind of guilty thrill ride.

As a journalist, Carlson is also implicating herself. Columnists can become suppliers in a feedback loop: reveal, provoke, watch the denial, repeat. The intent isn't cynicism for its own sake; it's a sober acknowledgment that exposure alone isn't reform. The context is a media ecosystem where scandal can be endlessly narrated, safely contained, and even enjoyed - precisely because it doesn't have to change anything.