Creativity Quote by Jonathan King

A strange little sentence that tries to launder notoriety into injury. Jonathan King doesn’t say he was criticized, investigated, or exposed; he says Jon Ronson "took against" him. That phrasing is the giveaway. It shrinks professional scrutiny into a personal mood swing, as if the problem is Ronson’s temperament rather than King’s record. It’s the language of someone reframing accountability as a misunderstanding between two men, not a public reckoning.

Naming Ronson’s outlets - the Guardian, Channel 4 - isn’t just scene-setting, it’s credibility management. King quietly signals: this wasn’t gossip, this was serious-media attention. But instead of engaging what that attention was about, he pivots to his own feeling: "I was sad". The emotion is doing defensive work. Sadness reads softer than anger, more relatable than indignation; it invites the audience to imagine King as vulnerable, even persecuted, while leaving the substance of the critique conveniently offstage.

There’s also a faint attempt at social triangulation: Ronson is portrayed as a fellow media operator who inexplicably turned hostile. That implies betrayal, a broken professional fraternity. The subtext: we’re both in the business, why are you making me the story?

It works because it’s conversational, almost plaintive, and because it weaponizes understatement. "Took against" is cozy British euphemism for something far harsher. King’s intent is not to clarify facts but to reframe the narrative terrain: from wrongdoing to reputational pain, from public interest to private grievance.