Failure, it is thought, is what sells, and what people want to hear and read about. I am not so sure.

Campbell is pushing back against a common media and publishing assumption: that audiences are most drawn to stories of collapse, scandal, and defeat. By adding “I am not so sure,” he signals skepticism about the market logic that privileges negativity and confessional failure narratives. The line implies that an overemphasis on failure can become a self-fulfilling cultural script—rewarding cynicism and discouraging accounts of competence, recovery, or sustained success. It also hints at a moral critique: that what “sells” is not necessarily what is healthiest for public discourse, and that readers may in fact hunger for more constructive, nuanced stories than gatekeepers presume.