"Sound-Bite" Discourse

True to the entertainment­commercial format, "sound­bite"' discourse increasingly replaces reflective deliberations over complex socio­political problems. ⁷⁶ As Ms. Kiku Adatto's analysis of more than 280 week­day network newscasts from 1968 to 1988 reveals:

• The average "sound bite,"' or bloc of uninterrupted speech, fell from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to only 9.8 seconds in 1988.

• In 1968, almost half of all sound bites were 40 seconds or more, compared with only one percent in 1988.

• In 1968, [political] candidates spoke for a minute without interruption in 21 percent of all newscasts. In 1988, this never happened. ⁷⁷

"Sound­bite"' discourse was the fare of the last televised presidential debates, which columnist George Will aptly described as "tossed salads of brevity,"' serving only to "test skills unrelated to the real tasks of governance. . . . [These] debates [were] primarily the regurgitation of market­ tested paragraphs. Reflexes, not thinking, [were] crucial."' ⁷⁸ Ronald Reagan once remarked: "Politics is just like show business."' ⁷⁹ One need only witness the spectacle of United States Senators, governors, prominent mayors, and presidential aspirants who make cameo appearances on "Saturday Night Live"' ⁸⁰ to realize the truth of former­President Reagan's observation. Reflecting on this truth, broadcast journalist Bill Moyers forecasts a gloomy future for the American polity:

Running campaigns in a nation on the pleasure principle is wrecking the polity of America, destroying our ability as a cooperative society to face reality and solve our problems. . . . Behind the charm and smiles, behind the one­liners [and] the pretty pictures, . . . the government rots, its costs soar, its failures mount . . . . But, on the bridge of the ship of state, no one's on watch and below deck no one can see the iceberg but everyone's feeling good. ⁸¹

Not only politics, but other forms of important public discourse are increasingly packaged as entertainment when touched by television. The old Edward R. Murrow news model ⁸² is yielding ever more to attractive "'anchors,"' ⁸³ staged visuals, lulling music, compressed context, ⁸⁴ and commercially­oriented "video news releases."' ⁸⁵ "'The presence of news in prime time, competing against entertainment shows, creates . . . pressures to make news stories more visually compelling," maintains Mr. Ed Turner, the executive vice­president of Cable News Network. ⁸⁶ Even the make­believe of simulated events ⁸⁷ and docu­dramas ⁸⁸ conform with the entertainment standards of today's news world. TV critic Tom Shales correctly observes: "More and more in television, stories that should be treated in documentary fashion end up as TV movies, and stories that would make good TV movies end up as news productions. The line between news and entertainment hasn't just been blurred; everything's gone topsy­turvy."' ⁸⁹ In such a world, as sacrosanct a prospect as Christ's second coming would be packaged for commercial television with all its electronically graven images. ⁹⁰