Success Quote by Ian Hislop

A job that "doesn't win you a huge amount of friends" is a neat way of naming what public accountability work really costs: not just popularity, but access, invitations, soft power. Ian Hislop, as a long-serving editor and professional irritant, frames that cost with an almost disarming politeness: "I accept that". The phrase is pure British understatement, a shrug that signals he knows exactly how many doors close when your job is pointing out hypocrisy, corruption, or absurdity - and that he plans to keep knocking anyway.

Then comes the tonal pivot: "but it is very enjoyable". Hislop admits the guilty pleasure at the heart of satire and investigative commentary. There's a relish in puncturing pomposity, in watching the powerful squirm. He doesn't pretend it's saintly work powered only by civic duty; he foregrounds the fun, which makes the later moral claim feel less performative.

"Deep down I think it's probably quite a worthwhile job" is doing even more. The hedging ("deep down", "probably", "quite") reads like self-protection against sounding self-important. It's also a subtle argument about legitimacy: editors and satirists aren't elected, they're not neutral, and they can look like professional sneerers. By downplaying his own righteousness, Hislop makes the case that the value of the work isn't in his virtue but in the function it serves: keeping public life slightly more honest by making dishonesty expensive in reputational terms.

The context is a media ecosystem where being liked can become a business model. Hislop is opting out of that economy, insisting that antagonism, used well, can be a public service.