Daily Inspiration Quote by Joey Skaggs

Skaggs isn’t complaining about journalism so much as bragging about how easy it is to hack. As a professional hoaxer and media provocateur, he delivers this line with the cool confidence of someone who’s watched the gatekeepers leave the gate wide open. The sting is in the phrase “come to me”: reporters aren’t pursuing a story, they’re shopping for one, and he’s positioned himself as a convenient supplier.

The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s a jab at laziness: copy-and-paste reporting, the press release as prefab narrative, the erosion of shoe-leather skepticism. Underneath, it’s an indictment of an entire incentive structure where speed, virality, and access beat verification. Press releases aren’t just sources; they’re permission slips. Skaggs is pointing to the quiet bargain: you give me a clean quote and a ready-made angle, I’ll give you publicity, and neither of us has to do the hard part.

“Professional duty” lands like a dare. He frames basic verification as an ethical minimum, then implies it’s become optional. Coming from Skaggs, the subtext is crueler: if journalists can be led by the nose by institutional PR, imagine how easily they can be led by an entertaining stranger with a phone number and a straight face.

Context matters here because Skaggs built a career exposing media credulity, often using fake organizations and too-perfect story hooks. The quote is less nostalgia for a better press than a diagnostic: when newsrooms run on scarcity of time and abundance of content, the press release stops being a lead and starts being the story.