Politics & Power Quote by R. W. Apple, Jr.

Apple’s line lands like a polite throat-clearing that turns into an indictment. The barb isn’t aimed at politicians - they’re almost a constant, expected embarrassment - but at the press corps’ temptation to inflate its own importance. “Even more seriously” is the knife twist: it suggests that the very people tasked with puncturing ego and spin can become captive to the same vanity, just with better vocabulary and a deadline.

The intent is corrective, aimed inward. Apple spent decades reporting from the nerve centers of power, in an era when the prestige of institutional journalism still felt solid but its rituals were hardening into orthodoxy. The subtext: seriousness is not the same as rigor. A reporter can perform gravity - the solemn tone, the insider lexicon, the self-myth of watchdog heroism - while missing what matters, or worse, confusing proximity to power with accountability.

The quote also reads as an early warning about a feedback loop: politicians posture for coverage; journalists posture for relevance; both benefit from the theater of high stakes. When journalists out-solemn the officials they cover, they risk laundering political self-importance into “history,” making every tactical squabble sound like destiny. That’s how the press can become an unwitting co-author of the narrative it claims to interrogate.

Apple’s cynicism is measured, not sneering. He isn’t arguing for flippancy; he’s arguing for proportion. The best journalism, he implies, is confident enough to be unseduced by its own role - and brave enough to admit it can be part of the problem.