"What played to what had been a relative weakness for us, this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground"
About this Quote
“Exploding overseas” does double duty. On the surface, it’s growth - an audience, a story, a platform catching fire beyond U.S. borders. Underneath, the verb carries a wartime charge, borrowing the drama of conflict to justify urgency. The implied fear isn’t just being late to a trend; it’s losing narrative control in regions where influence is contested and where competitors - local outlets, global networks, digital upstarts - can define events before American media even arrives.
Then there’s the scramble: “mount some reach,” “get into places,” “competitive on the ground.” Hume is describing journalism with the vocabulary of deployment. “On the ground” is the tell, suggesting a moment when proximity equals credibility and when access is a form of power. The subtext is that audiences were starting to demand immediacy and presence, and the institution he’s speaking from had been built for a different era: centralized, domestic, slower. The intent is pragmatic, but the context is cultural - a media world shifting from broadcast authority to global, frictionless competition where being everywhere isn’t ambition; it’s survival.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hume, Brit. (2026, February 16). What played to what had been a relative weakness for us, this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-played-to-what-had-been-a-relative-weakness-142041/
Chicago Style
Hume, Brit. "What played to what had been a relative weakness for us, this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-played-to-what-had-been-a-relative-weakness-142041/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"What played to what had been a relative weakness for us, this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-played-to-what-had-been-a-relative-weakness-142041/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.







