Journalism

 

 

Journalists go on searching for sensation. Their whole business depends on sensation. They exploit the lowest instincts of humanity. Journalism has not yet come of age. It has not become mature yet. So if there is a rape, it is news. If there is murder, it is news. If there is suicide, it is news. Anything ugly, disgusting, criminal, is news, and anything beautiful is not news. If a dog bites a man it is not news, it is natural; but if a man bites a dog, then it is news. Then the journalist is not interested whether it is true or not; then it is enough, the rumor is enough.

 

There is an old definition of a philosopher: a philosopher is a blind man in a dark house with no light, on a dark night, looking for a black cat which is not there. This is an old definition of a philosopher. Let me add something more to it. The journalist is the man who finds it. Then it is news. [....]

 

And you say journalists and politicians have been asking you the question. Journalists are poor people -- just living, exploiting the lower instincts of man and the lower curiosities of man. They are not very harmful, they are not dangerous. At the most they create amusement and people just enjoy. They themselves cannot rape; they enjoy a rape story. They would like to murder, but they cannot murder, it is too risky; they enjoy the murder story. They have thought many times to commit suicide -- remember, it is very difficult to find a man who has not at one time in his life thought of dropping it all, and being finished with it all -- but they have not been able to gather courage. It needs a little courage to commit suicide -- just a little courage, not much. Real courage is needed to live. Just a little courage is needed to commit suicide -- a momentary emotional courage, just for a moment, for a flash. But they have not been able to do it themselves. Somebody else has done it; they enjoy the story.

 

People enjoy only that which they would like to do but are not capable of -- their circumstances don't permit, whatsoever the cause -- but they can at least enjoy it. They can get identified. In a movie, in television, in a story, in a novel, in a newspaper, they get identified with those people that they would like to become but they cannot. They may condemn, that is their mask; deep down they are enjoying it. Otherwise, why so much interest in Jonestown? He was mad. And who were his followers? All uneducated, mostly black people, not understanding anything -- what kind of congregation had he got? But he managed to draw the attention of the whole world just by committing suicide. Otherwise nobody would have ever known the Reverend Jim Jones and his people. By committing suicide he has managed good publicity. And that's all he wanted: to become famous. [....]

 

But the politicians are dangerous people. Journalists are nothing to be much worried about, but politicians are dangerous people. It can never become a Jonestown, but politicians can make it a Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald. Politicians can do that, they have already started doing it. They declare the city illegal. Now, where seven thousand people are living without any crime, without any drugs, without any problem, without harming anybody, the city is illegal! No illegality is committed -- the city is illegal. And the illegal cities, which are committing all illegalities, are legal.

 

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #7, Q1“