Orwell Meets Nixon

Abstract

In the early 1970s, reporters in Washington started getting bigger salaries, better reputations, and bigger egos. This prospect bothered one critic, Richard Nixon. Nixon was a longtime student of the press, radio, and television. He disliked them all. Saying he wished to “discredit” them, he sought to change their name. He succeeded because reporters, in their rise to social prominence, did not pay attention to the deterioration of the most important journalistic tool of all, the English language. George Orwell, the British writer who wrote Animal Farm and 1984, laid down rules for clear writing that influenced many writers. His essay,“Politics and the English Language,” was recommended reading in newspaper city rooms. The glare of television, which influenced news-gathering habits in the 1960s and 1970s, distracted some reporters from the vigilance required against what Orwell warned about. In most political writing, Orwell wrote, the corruption of thought and the corruption of language were evident in “dying metaphors” and “pretentious diction.” Some in the press fell victim to both. Others were beguiled by the theories of Marshall McLuhan. Together, these trends helped Nixon change “the press” into “the media” and helped make “media” a singular noun.