Many stories are told about the eccentric Kaiser Franz-Josef I, penultimate Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Most of them are presumably urban legends, including this one – but that doesn't matter for present purposes: the story is that the Kaiser was visiting an exhibition of modern art. And he said to one of the artists standing proudly by his painting: “well, that isn't bad, but tell me, young man, why have you painted the sky green, and the grass pink?”
“Because that is how I see them, your Majesty”, replied the painter.
The Kaiser nodded sympathetically and turned away. But then turned back in puzzlement to ask a supplementary question: “But in that case – how the devil did you happen to choose painting as your profession?”
Likewise Christiane Amanpour sees the world like this:
“I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did.”
Now, clearly she is a talented and cultured woman. She must have had a choice of many careers. But since she is capable of giving credence to such a whopper of a conspiracy theory (intimidated by Fox News?), and since she seems to have no more understanding of the meanings of the terms “press was muzzled”, “intimidated”, and “climate of fear” than a deep-sea oyster, one has to wonder how on earth she came to choose journalism as her profession.
