"Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad"
About this Quote
Amanpour’s line lands less as nostalgia than as a warning flare from inside the institution that’s supposed to keep the public oriented. The bluntness matters: “much maligned” isn’t just about hurt feelings; it signals a profession being strategically weakened. By framing distrust as “sad,” she’s using understatement as a rhetorical trap. If she led with outrage, critics could dismiss her as defensive. “Sad” reads almost parental, a plea for maturity in a culture that’s turned the referee into the enemy.
The intent is twofold: acknowledge the collapse in public confidence without validating the anti-press narrative that caused it. She’s also drawing a careful line between journalists and “the media” as a political bogeyman. “Our profession” is a solidarity claim, but it’s also a corrective: journalism is a craft with norms (verification, sourcing, accountability), not a partisan tribe.
Subtextually, she’s pointing at the feedback loop of modern outrage politics: delegitimize reporters, replace facts with identity signals, then cite the resulting confusion as proof that facts were never reliable. The “simply” in “people simply don’t trust” is doing quiet work, suggesting the reasons are both obvious and disturbingly easy - as if decades of work can be undone by a slogan, a viral clip, a bad-faith headline.
Context is the post-2016 environment of “fake news” as weaponized language, collapsing economic models for local reporting, and a platform ecosystem that rewards certainty over accuracy. Amanpour isn’t asking for applause; she’s asking what happens to democracy when the public stops believing the messenger, even when the message is verifiable.
The intent is twofold: acknowledge the collapse in public confidence without validating the anti-press narrative that caused it. She’s also drawing a careful line between journalists and “the media” as a political bogeyman. “Our profession” is a solidarity claim, but it’s also a corrective: journalism is a craft with norms (verification, sourcing, accountability), not a partisan tribe.
Subtextually, she’s pointing at the feedback loop of modern outrage politics: delegitimize reporters, replace facts with identity signals, then cite the resulting confusion as proof that facts were never reliable. The “simply” in “people simply don’t trust” is doing quiet work, suggesting the reasons are both obvious and disturbingly easy - as if decades of work can be undone by a slogan, a viral clip, a bad-faith headline.
Context is the post-2016 environment of “fake news” as weaponized language, collapsing economic models for local reporting, and a platform ecosystem that rewards certainty over accuracy. Amanpour isn’t asking for applause; she’s asking what happens to democracy when the public stops believing the messenger, even when the message is verifiable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Honesty & Integrity |
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