Wealth & Money Quote by Will McDonough

McDonough’s line lands like a newsroom aside whispered loud enough for everyone to hear: television isn’t being praised for its craft, its civic value, or even its reach, but for its payroll. The joke is blunt, almost ungentlemanly, and that’s the point. By granting TV only “one good thing,” he rigs the sentence so the compliment becomes an indictment. The medium that sells itself as public service or cultural glue gets reduced to a paycheck. In one move, he flatters the writer’s survival instinct while mocking the industry that forces the choice.

The subtext is labor economics wearing a smirk. Newspapers, especially in the late 20th century, traded on prestige and mission while often underpaying the people who actually filled the pages. Television, meanwhile, could afford to compensate writers because it sat closer to the money spigot: advertising at scale, corporate budgets, a national audience measured in ratings. McDonough is pointing at the quiet bargain: if you want to keep writing for a living, you may have to write for a machine that cares less about sentences than about slots.

Context matters. A mid-century writer would have watched TV rise from novelty to dominant platform, siphoning attention and ad dollars away from print. The line captures that lopsided migration: not just audiences moving, but talent following income. It’s cynical, but not empty cynicism; it’s a diagnosis of how media values are set. When the “good thing” is money, the warning is that money will eventually decide what gets made, what gets covered, and what gets called “good.”