Leadership Quote by Michael Pollan

Pollan is poking at a comforting newsroom myth: that the press is the engine of public life, dragging reluctant officials into the light. His line flips the power dynamic back to where it usually sits. Congress, with its hearings, leaks, “exclusive” briefings, and carefully timed procedural drama, doesn’t just respond to coverage - it manufactures the day’s storyline. Journalism, even at its most adversarial, often ends up chasing the calendar of elite institutions because that calendar comes prepackaged as news: conflict, stakes, personalities, deadlines.

The intent is less to absolve journalists than to indict the structure they work inside. “Set the agenda” is the key phrase: it’s about selection, not censorship. When leaders decide what gets debated, investigated, or staged for cameras, they narrow the menu of topics that can plausibly become headline material. Reporters may fact-check, frame, and critique, but they’re frequently doing so within boundaries drawn by political operatives who understand attention as a resource to be allocated.

The subtext lands on a familiar frustration of media consumers: why does every scandal feel inevitable, every “surprise” feel scripted, every big issue arrive only when a politician blesses it with a committee hearing? Pollan, known for explaining systems (food, markets, habits) rather than just villains, is applying the same lens to the information ecosystem: incentives, access, and time pressure turn journalism into a reactive industry. The critique isn’t “the press is useless”; it’s sharper: the press is powerful, but often in second position, playing on a field marked out by Congress.