Creativity Quote by Paul Simon

Paul Simon doesn’t need to shout “fake news” here; he just lets the line lean into a weary, street-level skepticism that feels timeless in American pop. The voice isn’t claiming a grand conspiracy. It’s smaller, more damning: the papers aren’t chasing truth, they’re chasing a dime. That choice of coin matters. A dime is pocket change, the price of mass attention, suggesting a media economy built on volume and reflex rather than judgment. The accusation lands because it’s modest and specific, the kind of complaint you’d hear at a diner counter, which makes it feel more credible than an ideological rant.

The lyric’s engine is repetition: “Exaggerating this, exaggerating that.” It mimics the endless carousel of headlines where everything is urgent, everything is scandal, nothing is stable. The vagueness is the point; Simon doesn’t even bother naming the stories because the pattern is the scandal. By refusing details, he frames sensationalism as a habit, not an exception.

Culturally, it sits in that late-20th-century transition where media is both omnipresent and increasingly suspect: tabloids, television churn, celebrity narratives hardening into product. Simon, a writer obsessed with how modern life scrambles meaning, turns distrust into rhythm. The line captures the moment when the public starts treating the news not as a civic instrument but as a hustle, and when the consumer quietly realizes they’re not just being informed - they’re being monetized.