Daily Inspiration Quote by Fred W. Friendly

A backhanded compliment is still a weapon, and Fred W. Friendly knows exactly where to aim it: at the fragile self-image of broadcast television. The line starts with “pride,” a word networks love to wear like a lapel pin, then strips it down to a single surviving justification - news - before dumping everything else into the blunt, undignified bucket of “crap.” That vulgarity matters. It’s not academic critique; it’s the language of a producer who has seen budgets, meetings, ratings sheets, and the quiet bargains that turn “public service” into branding.

Friendly’s intent is less to elevate news than to indict the system that treats it as an exception. The subtext is that networks understand the moral hierarchy: news confers legitimacy, entertainment prints money, and the two coexist in a tense arrangement where one is used to excuse the other. “And they know it” is the sharpest blade. It implies complicity, not ignorance - executives aren’t victims of the market, they’re authors of it. The phrase anticipates a now-familiar corporate posture: tout the one civic-facing product while aggressively scaling the rest toward whatever keeps viewers from changing the channel.

Contextually, Friendly’s career (including his principled clashes over journalistic independence at CBS) gives the quote its bite. He’s not scolding from outside the gates; he’s testifying from inside the control room. The line still lands because it diagnoses a durable media trick: launder a company’s cultural value through the one department that can plausibly claim a conscience.