"To err is human but to really foul up requires a computer"
About this Quote
The line lands because it flatters us and indicts us in the same breath. Dan Rather borrows Pope's old chestnut ("To err is human...") and snaps it into the late-20th-century newsroom reality: the computer doesn't just mechanize work, it mechanizes blame. A lone typo is forgivable, even charming. A database merge gone wrong, a mistyped formula replicated across thousands of rows, an auto-filled chyron that misidentifies a person on live television - that's not a quaint human slip. That's an error with scale, speed, and institutional consequences.
Rather's intent isn't Luddite panic so much as a journalist's suspicion of systems that promise neutrality. Computers sell the fantasy of precision; when they fail, they fail with a kind of bureaucratic authority. The subtext is about accountability: technology becomes a convenient alibi ("the system did it") and a force multiplier for our worst habits - haste, overconfidence, and the urge to trust outputs because they look official.
Context matters. Rather came up in an era when newsrooms were transforming from paper-and-phone operations into screen-and-software factories, where deadlines tightened and the distance between decision and dissemination collapsed. His joke is a pressure valve for that transition, but it's also a warning: the modern screw-up isn't more human, it's less. It's an error that feels impersonal, yet lands on real people all the same.
Rather's intent isn't Luddite panic so much as a journalist's suspicion of systems that promise neutrality. Computers sell the fantasy of precision; when they fail, they fail with a kind of bureaucratic authority. The subtext is about accountability: technology becomes a convenient alibi ("the system did it") and a force multiplier for our worst habits - haste, overconfidence, and the urge to trust outputs because they look official.
Context matters. Rather came up in an era when newsrooms were transforming from paper-and-phone operations into screen-and-software factories, where deadlines tightened and the distance between decision and dissemination collapsed. His joke is a pressure valve for that transition, but it's also a warning: the modern screw-up isn't more human, it's less. It's an error that feels impersonal, yet lands on real people all the same.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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