Time & Perspective Quote by Thomas Griffith

Journalism, Griffith suggests, is history before it’s had time to dress up for the occasion. The line flatters the newsroom instinct - urgency as virtue - while quietly admitting its cost: what’s “on the run” is incomplete, breathless, and sometimes corner-cutting. It’s a kinetic metaphor that turns the daily report into a chase scene, with facts sprinting ahead of interpretation and meaning always a few steps behind.

The intent is partly a defense of the craft. Editors are forever accused of superficiality, of chasing novelty instead of truth. Griffith reframes that criticism as a job description: journalism isn’t meant to be the settled archive; it’s the first rough draft written while the building is still on fire. That makes its errors and omissions not incidental but structural. “History” carries authority; “on the run” supplies humility. Together they argue for journalism’s importance without pretending it can offer the final word.

The subtext also points to power. If journalism is history in motion, then editors and reporters are not just recording events; they’re shaping what will later count as the story. Choices made under deadline - which voices get quoted, which images circulate, which angles harden into “common knowledge” - become the raw material historians inherit. In an era of live updates and algorithmic feeds, Griffith’s phrase lands even harder: history isn’t just running now; it’s being chased, herded, and sometimes mugged by the velocity of attention.