"Amusing Ourselves
Public Discourse
in the Age
of Show Business",
by Neil Postman,
Penguin Books,
1985,
pages 99 to 113.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Now ... This!"
The American humorist
H. Allen Smith
once suggested that
of all the worrisome words
in the English language,
the scariest is "uh oh,"
as when a physician
looks at your X-rays,
and
with knitted brow says,
"Uh oh."
I should like to suggest
that the words
which are
the title of this chapter
["Now ... This!"]
are as ominous as any,
all the more so
because they are spoken
without knitted brow --
indeed,
with
a kind of idiot's delight.
The phrase,
if that's what
it may be called,
adds to our grammar
a new part of speech,
a conjunction
that does not connect
anything to anything
but does the opposite:
separates
everything from everything.
As such,
it serves
as a compact metaphor
for the discontinuities
in so much
that passes
for public discourse
in present-day America.
"Now ... this!"
is commonly used on radio
and
television newscasts
to indicate that
what one
has just heard or seen
has no relevance
to what one
is about to hear or see,
or
possibly to anything
one is ever likely
to hear or see.
The phrase
is a means
of
acknowledging the fact
that the world
as mapped
by
the speeded-up
electronic media
has no order
or
meaning
and
is not
to be taken seriously.
There is no murder
so brutal,
no earthquake
so devastating,
no political blunder
so costly --
for that matter,
no ball score
so tantalizing
or
weather report
so threatening --
that it cannot be
erased from our minds
by
a newscaster saying,
"Now ... this!"
The newscaster means
that
you have thought
long enough
on the previous matter
(approximately
forty-five seconds),
that you must not
be morbidly
preoccupied with it
(let us say,
for ninety seconds),
and
that you must now
give your attention
to another fragment of news
or a commercial.
Television did not invent
the "Now ... this!" world view.
As I have tried to show,
it is the offspring
of the intercourse
between
telegraphy
and photography.
But it is through television
that it has been nurtured
and
brought
to a perverse maturity.
For on television,
nearly every half hour
is a discrete event,
separated
in content,
context,
and
emotional texture
from what precedes
and follows it.
In part because
television sells its time
in seconds and minutes,
in part because
television must use images
rather than words,
in part because
its audience
can move freely to and from
the television set,
programs are structured
so that
almost each
eight-minute segment
may stand
as a complete event
in itself.
Viewers are rarely required
to carry over
any thought or feeling
from one parcel of time
to another.
Of course,
in television's presentation
of
the "news of the day,"
we may see
the "Now ... this!" mode of discourse
in its boldest
and
most embarrassing form.
For there,
we are presented
not only
with fragmented news
but
news without context,
without consequences,
without value,
and therefore
without essential seriousness;
that is to say,
news
as pure entertainment.
Consider, for example,
how you would proceed
if you were given the opportunity
to produce a television news show
for any station
concerned to attract
the largest possible audience.
You would, first,
choose a cast of players,
each of whom
has a face
that is both
"likable"
and "credible."
Those who apply would,
in fact,
submit to you
their eight-by-ten glossies,
from which
you would eliminate
those whose countenances
are not suitable
for nightly display.
This means that you
will exclude women
who are not beautiful
or
who are
over the age of fifty,
men who are bald,
all people
who are overweight
or
whose noses
are too long
or
whose eyes
are too close together.
You will try,
in other words,
to assemble a cast
of talking hair-do's.
At the very least,
you will want those
whose faces
would not be unwelcome
on a magazine cover.
Christine Craft
has just such a face,
and so
she applied for
a co-anchor position
on KMBC-TV
in Kansas City.
According to a lawyer
who represented her
in a sexism suit
she later
brought against the station,
the management of KMBC-TV
"loved Christine's look."
She was accordingly
hired
in January 1981.
She was
fired
in August 1981
because research indicated
that her appearance
"hampered viewer acceptance."
What exactly does
"hampered viewer acceptance"
mean?
And what
does it have to do
with the news?
Hampered
viewer acceptance
means the same thing
for television news
as it does
for any television show:
viewers do not like
looking at
the performer.
It also means
that viewers
do not believe
the performer,
that she lacks
credibility.
In the case of
a
theatrical performance,
we have a sense
of what that implies:
the actor
does not persuade
the audience
that he or she
is the character
being portrayed.
But what does
lack of credibility
imply
in the case of
a news show?
What character
is a co-anchor playing?
And how do we decide
that the performance
lacks verisimilitude?
Does the audience
believe
that the newscaster
is lying,
that
what is reported
did not
in fact happen,
that
something important
is
being concealed?
It is frightening to think
that this may be so,
that
the perception
of the truth of a report
rests heavily
on
the acceptability
of the newscaster.
In the ancient world,
there was a tradition
of banishing
or killing
the bearer of bad tidings.
Does
the television news show
restore,
in a curious form,
this tradition?
Do we banish those
who tell us the news
when we
do not care for the face
of the teller?
Does television
countermand the warnings
we once received
about the fallacy
of
the ad hominem
argument?
If the answer
to any of these questions
is even
a qualified
"Yes,"
then
here is an issue
worthy
of
the attention
of epistemologists.
Stated
in its simplest form,
it is that television
provides
a new
(or, possibly,
restores an old)
definition
of truth:
the credibility of the teller
is
the ultimate test
of the truth
of
a proposition.
"Credibility"
here
does not refer
to the past record
of the teller
for making statements
that have
survived the rigors
of reality-testing.
It refers only
to
the impression
of sincerity,
authenticity,
vulnerability
or
attractiveness
(choose one or more)
conveyed
by
the actor/reporter.
This is a matter
of considerable importance,
for
it goes beyond the question
of
how truth is perceived
on
television news shows.
If on television,
credibility replaces reality
as
the decisive test
of truth-telling,
political leaders
need not trouble themselves
very much with reality
provided that
their performances
consistently generate
a sense of verisimilitude.
I suspect, for example,
that the dishonor
that now shrouds
Richard Nixon
results
not from
the fact that he lied
but
that
on television
he looked like a liar.
Which, if true,
should bring no comfort
to anyone,
not even
veteran Nixon-haters.
For
the alternative possibilities
are
that one may look like a liar
but
be telling the truth;
or even worse,
look like a truth-teller
but
in fact
be lying.
As a producer
of a television news show,
you would be well aware
of these matters
and would be careful
to choose your cast
on the basis of criteria
used by David Merrick
and
other successful impresarios.
Like them,
you would then
turn your attention
to
staging the show
on principles
that
maximize
entertainment value.
You would,
for example,
select
a musical theme
for the show.
All television
news programs
begin,
end,
and are
somewhere in between
punctuated
with music.
I have found
very few Americans
who regard this custom
as peculiar,
which fact
I have taken as evidence
for
the dissolution
of lines of demarcation
between
serious public discourse
and
entertainment.
What has music
to do
with the news?
Why
is it there?
It is there,
I assume,
for the same reason
music is used
in the theater and films --
to create
a mood
and
provide a leitmotif
for
the entertainment.
If there were no music --
as is the case
when any television program
is interrupted
for a news flash --
viewers
would expect something
truly alarming,
possibly life-altering.
But
as long as the music
is there
as a frame
for the program,
the viewer
is comforted to believe
that there is
nothing to be
greatly alarmed about;
that,
in fact,
the events
that are reported
have
as much relation
to reality
as do scenes
in a play.
This perception
of a news show
as
a stylized dramatic
performance
whose content
has been staged
largely to entertain
is reinforced
by several other features,
including the fact
that the average length
of any story
is forty-five seconds.
While brevity
does not always
suggest
triviality,
in this case
it clearly does.
It is simply not possible
to convey
a sense of seriousness
about any event
if its implications
are exhausted
in less than
one minute's time.
In fact,
it is quite obvious
that TV news
has no intention
of suggesting
that any story
has
any implications,
for that
would require viewers
to
continue to think about it
when it is done
and therefore
obstruct their attending
to the next story
that waits
panting
in the wings.
In any case,
viewers
are not provided
with much opportunity
to be distracted
from
the next story
since
in all likelihood
it will consist
of some film footage.
Pictures
have little difficulty
in overwhelming words,
and
short-circuiting
introspection.
As a television producer,
you would be certain
to give both prominence
and precedence
to any event
for which
there is some sort
of visual documentation.
A suspected killer
being brought into a police station,
the angry face
of a cheated consumer,
a barrel going over Niagara Falls
(with a person alleged to be in it),
the President
disembarking from a helicopter
on the White House lawn --
these are always
fascinating or amusing,
and easily satisfy
the requirements
of
an entertaining show.
It is, of course,
not necessary
that the visuals
actually document
the point of a story.
Neither is it necessary
to explain
why such images
are intruding themselves
on public consciousness.
Film footage
justifies itself,
as
every television producer
well knows.
It is also
of considerable help
in maintaining
a high level of unreality
that the newscasters
do not pause
to grimace
or shiver
when
they speak
their prefaces
or epilogs
to the film clips.
Indeed,
many newscasters
do not appear
to grasp the meaning
of what
they are saying,
and
some hold to
a fixed
and
ingratiating enthusiasm
as they report
on earthquakes,
mass killings
and
other disasters.
Viewers
would be quite disconcerted
by any show of concern
or terror
on the part of newscasters
in the "Now ... this!" culture,
and
they expect the newscaster
to play out
his or her role
as a character
who is marginally serious
but
who stays well clear
of authentic understanding.
The viewers, for their part,
will not be caught
contaminating their responses
with a sense of reality,
any more than
an audience at a play
would go scurrying
to call home
because a character on stage
has said
that a murderer is loose
in the neighborhood.
The viewers also know
that no matter
how grave any fragment of news
may appear
(for example,
on the day I write
a Marine Corps general
has declared
that nuclear war
between
the United States
and Russia
is inevitable),
it will shortly be followed
by a series of commercials
that will,
in an instant
defuse
the import of the news,
in fact
render it
largely banal.
This is a key element
in the structure
of a news program
and all by itself
refutes any claim
that television news
is designed
as a serious form
of public discourse.
Imagine
what you would think of me,
and this book,
if I were to pause here,
tell you
that I will return to my discussion
in a moment,
and then
proceed to write a few words
in behalf of
United Airlines
or
the Chase Manhattan Bank.
You would rightly think
that I had
no respect for you
and, certainly,
no respect
for the subject.
And if I did this
not once
but several times
in each chapter,
you would think
the whole enterprise
unworthy
of your attention.
Why, then,
do we not think
a news show
similarly unworthy?
The reason,
I believe,
is that
whereas
we expect books
and
even other media
(such as film)
to maintain
a consistency of tone
and
a continuity of content,
we have
no such expectation
of television,
and especially
television news.
We have become
so accustomed
to its discontinuities
that we are
no longer struck dumb,
as any sane person
would be,
by a newscaster
who
having just reported
that
a nuclear war is inevitable
goes on to say
that
he will be right back
after this word
from Burger King;
who says,
in other words,
"Now ... this!!"
One can hardly overestimate
the damage
that
such juxtapositions do
to our sense
of the world
as a serious place.
The damage
is especially massive
to youthful viewers
who depend
so much on television
for their clues
as to
how to respond
to the world.
In watching
television news,
they,
more than
any other segment
of the audience,
are drawn into
an epistemology
based on the assumption
that all reports
of cruelty and death
are greatly exaggerated
and, in any case,
not to be taken
seriously
or
responded to
sanely.
I should go
so far as to say
that embedded
in
the surrealistic frame
of
a television news show
is a theory
of anti-communication,
featuring
a type of discourse
that abandons
logic,
reason,
sequence
and
rules of contradiction.
In aesthetics,
I believe
the name given
to this theory
is Dadaism;
in philosophy,
nihilism;
in psychiatry,
schizophrenia.
In the parlance
of the theater,
it is known as
vaudeville.
For those who think
I am here guilty
of hyperbole,
I offer the following description
of television news
by
Robert MacNeil,
executive editor
and co-anchor
of the
"MacNeil-Lehrer
Newshour."
The idea, he writes,
"is to keep everything
brief,
not to strain the attention
of anyone
but instead
to provide
constant stimulation
through
variety,
novelty,
action,
and movement.
You are required ...
to pay attention
to
no concept,
no character,
and
no problem
for more than
a few seconds at a time."
He goes on to say
that the assumptions
controlling a news show
are "that bite-sized
is best,
that complexity
must be avoided,
that nuances
are dispensable,
that qualifications
impede
the simple message,
that
visual stimulation
is a substitute
for thought,
and that
verbal precision
is
an anachronism."
Robert MacNeil
has more reason than most
to give testimony
about the television news show
as vaudeville act.
The "MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour"
is an unusual
and gracious attempt
to bring to television
some of the elements
of typographic discourse.
The program
abjures visual stimulation,
consists largely
of extended explanations
of events
and in-depth interviews
(which even there
means
only five to ten minutes),
limits the number
of stories covered,
and
emphasizes
background
and coherence.
But television
has exacted its price
for MacNeil's rejection
of
a show business
format.
By television's standards,
the audience is miniscule,
the program
is confined
to public-television stations,
and
it is a good guess
that the combined salary
of MacNeil and Lehrer
is one-fifth
of Dan Rather's
or Tom Brokaw's.
If you were a producer
of a television news show
for a commercial station,
you would not have the option
of defying
television's requirements.
It would be demanded of you
that you strive
for the largest possible audience,
and,
as a consequence
and
in spite of your best intentions,
you would arrive at a production
very nearly
resembling MacNeil's description.
Moreover,
you would include some things
MacNeil does not mention.
You would try to make
celebrities
of your newscasters.
You would advertise
the show,
both in the press
and on television itself.
You would do "news briefs,"
to serve as an inducement
to viewers.
You would have
a weatherman
as comic relief,
and a sportscaster
whose language
is a touch uncouth
(as a way
of his relating
to
the beer-drinking
common man).
You would, in short,
package the whole event
as any producer might
who is
in
the entertainment business.
The result of all this
is that Americans
are
the best entertained
and
quite likely
the least well-informed people
in the Western world.
I say this
in the face
of the popular conceit
that television,
as a window to the world,
has made Americans
exceedingly
well informed.
Much depends here,
of course,
on what is meant
by being informed.
I will pass over
the now tiresome polls
that tell us that,
at any given moment,
70 percent of our citizens
do not know
who is the Secretary of State
or
the Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court.
Let us consider, instead,
the case of Iran
during the drama
that was called
the "Iranian Hostage Crisis."
I don't suppose
there has been
a story in years
that received more
continuous attention
from television.
We may assume,
then,
that Americans know
most
of what there is to know
about this
unhappy event.
And now,
I put these questions
to you:
would it be an exaggeration
to say
that not one American
in a hundred
knows what language
the Iranians speak?
Or what the word
"Ayatollah"
means
or implies?
Or knows any details
of the tenets
of Iranian
religious beliefs?
Or the main outlines
of
their political history?
Or knows
who the Shah was,
and
where he came from?
Nonetheless,
everyone had an opinion
about this event,
for in America
everyone is entitled
to an opinion,
and it is certainly useful
to have a few
when a pollster shows up.
But these are opinions
of a quite different order
from eighteenth-
or nineteenth-century
opinions.
It is probably more accurate
to call them emotions
rather than opinions,
which would account
for the fact
that they change
from week to week,
as the pollsters
tell us.
What is happening here
is that television
is altering the meaning
of "being informed"
by creating a species
of information
that might properly be called
disinformation.
I am using this word
almost in the precise sense
in which it is used
by spies in the CIA
or KGB.
Disinformation
does not mean
false information.
It means
misleading information --
misplaced,
irrelevant,
fragmented
or
superficial information --
information
that creates the illusion
of knowing something
but
which in fact
leads one
away from knowing.
In saying this,
I do not mean to imply
that television news
deliberately aims
to deprive Americans
of a coherent,
contextual understanding
of their world.
I mean to say
that when news is packaged
as entertainment,
that is the inevitable result.
And in saying
that the television news show
entertains but does not inform,
I am saying something
far more serious
than
that we are being deprived
of authentic information.
I am saying
we are losing our sense
of what it
means
to be
well informed.
Ignorance
is always
correctable.
But what shall we do
if we take ignorance
to be knowledge?
Here is
a startling example
of how this process
bedevils us.
A New York Times article
is headlined
on February 15, 1983:
REAGAN MISSTATEMENTS
GETTING LESS ATTENTION
The article begins
in the following way:
"President Reagan's aides
used to become visibly alarmed
at suggestions that he
had given mangled
and
perhaps misleading
accounts of his policies
or
of current events in general.
That doesn't seem
to happen much
anymore.
Indeed, the President
continues
to make debatable assertions
of fact
but
news accounts
do not deal with them
as extensively
as they once did.
In the view
of White House officials,
the declining news coverage
mirrors
a decline in interest
by the general public".
This report
is not so much
a news story
as
a story
about the news,
and
our recent history
suggests
that it is not about
Ronald Reagan's charm.
It is about
how news is defined,
and I believe the story
would be quite astonishing
to
both civil libertarians
and
tyrants
of an earlier time.
Walter Lippmann,
for example,
wrote in 1920:
"There can be no liberty
for a community
which lacks the means
by which to detect lies."
For all of his pessimism
about the possibilities
of restoring
an eighteenth-
and
nineteenth-century
level of public discourse,
Lippmann assumed,
as did Thomas Jefferson
before him,
that with
a well-trained press
functioning
as a lie-detector,
the public's interest
in
a President's mangling
of the truth
would be
piqued,
in both senses
of that word.
Given the means
to detect lies,
he believed,
the public
could not be indifferent
to their consequences.
But this case
refutes
his assumption.
The reporters
who cover the White House
are ready and able
to expose lies,
and thus
create the grounds
for
informed
and
indignant opinion.
But apparently
the public
declines to take an interest.
To press reports
of White House
dissembling,
the public
has replied
with Queen Victoria's
famous line:
"We are not
amused."
However,
here the words
mean something
that the Queen
did not have in mind.
They mean
that what is
not amusing
does not compel
their attention.
Perhaps if the President's lies
could be demonstrated by pictures
and accompanied by music
the public would raise a curious eyebrow.
If a movie,
like All the President's Men,
could be made
from his misleading accounts
of government policy,
if there were
a break-in of some sort
or
sinister characters laundering money,
attention would quite likely be paid.
We do well
to remember that
President Nixon
did not begin
to come undone
until his lies
were given a theatrical setting
at the Watergate hearings.
But we do not have
anything like that here.
Apparently,
all President Reagan does
is say things
that are not entirely true.
And there is nothing
entertaining in that.
But there is a subtler point
to be made here.
Many of the President's
"misstatements"
fall in the category
of contradictions --
mutually exclusive assertions
that cannot possibly both,
in the same context,
be true.
"In the same context"
is
the key phrase here,
for it is
context
that defines
contradiction.
There is no problem
in someone's remarking
that he
prefers oranges to apples,
and also remarking
that he
prefers apples to oranges --
not if one statement
is made
in the context
of choosing a wallpaper design
and the other
in the context
of selecting fruit for dessert.
In such a case,
we have statements
that are opposites,
but not contradictory.
But if the statements are made
in a single,
continuous,
and
coherent context,
then they are contradictions,
and cannot both be true.
Contradiction,
in short,
requires that statements and events
be perceived
as interrelated aspects
of
a continuous
and
coherent
context.
Disappear
the context,
or
fragment it,
and
contradiction disappears.
This point is nowhere made
more clear to me
than in conferences
with my younger students
about their writing.
"Look here,
I say.
"In this paragraph
you have said
one thing.
And in that
you have said
the opposite.
Which is it to be?"
They are polite,
and wish to please,
but they are
as baffled by the question
as I am
by the response.
"but that is there
and this is here."
"there" and "here,"
"now" and "then,"
one paragraph
and the next
to be connected,
to be continuous,
to be
part of
the same coherent world
of thought.
and
typography
is the universe
I'm "coming from,"
as they say.
But they are coming
from a different universe
of discourse altogether:
the "Now ... this!" world
of television.
The fundamental assumption
of that world
is not
coherence
but
discontinuity.
And in a world
of discontinuities,
contradiction is useless
as a test of truth or merit,
because contradiction
does not exist.
My point is
that
we are by now
so thoroughly adjusted
to
the "Now ... this!" world
of news --
a world of fragments,
where events stand alone,
stripped of any connection
to the past,
or
to the future,
or
to other events --
that all assumptions
of coherence
have vanished.
And so,
perforce,
has contradiction.
In the context
of no context,
so to speak,
it simply disappears.
And in its absence,
what possible interest
could there be
in a list
of what the President
says now
and
what he said then?
It is merely
a rehash of old news,
and there is nothing
interesting
or
entertaining
in that.
The only thing to be amused about
is the bafflement of reporters
at the public's indifference.
There is an irony
in the fact
that the very group
that has taken the world apart
should,
on trying
to piece it together again,
be surprised
that no one notices much,
or cares.
For all his perspicacity,
George Orwell
would have been stymied
by this situation;
there is nothing
"Orwellian"
about it.
The President
does not
have the press
under his thumb.
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post
are not Pravda;
the Associated Press
is not Tass.
And there is no
Newspeak
here.
Lies
have not
been defined
as truth
nor truth
as lies.
All that has happened
is that the public
has adjusted
to incoherence
and
been amused
into indifference.
Which is why Aldous Huxley
would not in the least
be surprised
by the story.
Indeed,
he prophesied its coming.
He believed
that it is far more likely
that
the Western democracies
will dance
and dream
themselves into oblivion
than
march into it,
single file
and manacled.
Huxley grasped,
as Orwell did not,
that
it is not necessary
to conceal anything
from a public
insensible to contradiction
and
narcoticized
by technological diversions.
Although Huxley
did not specify
that television would be
our main line to the drug,
he would have
no difficulty accepting
Robert MacNeil's observation
that
"Television is the soma
of Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World."
Big Brother
turns out to be
Howdy Doody.
I do not mean
that
the trivialization
of public information
is all accomplished
on television.
I mean
that television
is the paradigm
for our conception
of public information.
As the printing press
did in an earlier time,
television
has achieved the power
to define the form
in which news must come,
and
it has also defined
how we shall respond to it.
In presenting news
to us
packaged as vaudeville,
television induces other media
to do the same,
so that
the total information environment
begins to mirror television.
For example,
America's newest
and highly successful
national newspaper,
USA Today,
is modeled precisely
on the format
of television.
It is sold on the street
in receptacles
that look like television sets.
Its stories are uncommonly short,
its design leans heavily on pictures,
charts and other graphics,
some of them
printed in various colors.
Its weather maps
are a visual delight;
its sport section
includes
enough pointless statistics
to distract a computer.
As a consequence,
USA Today,
which began publication
in September 1982,
has become
the third largest daily
in the United States
(as of July 1984,
according to
the Audit Bureau
of Circulations),
moving quickly
to overtake
the Daily News
and
the Wall Street Journal.
Journalists
of a more traditional bent
have criticized it
for
its superficiality and theatrics,
but the paper's editors
remain steadfast
in their disregard
of typographic standards.
The paper's Editor-in-Chief
John Quinn,
has said:
"We are not up to
undertaking projects
of the dimensions needed
to win prizes.
They don't give awards
for the best investigative
paragraph."
Here is an astonishing tribute
to the resonance
of television's epistemology:
In the age of television,
the paragraph
is becoming
the basic unit of news
in print media.
Moreover,
Mr. Quinn
need not fret too long
about being deprived
of awards.
As other newspapers
join in the transformation,
the time cannot be far off
when awards will be given
for the best investigative
sentence.
It needs also to be noted here
that new and successful magazines
such as People and Us
are not only examples
of television-oriented print media
but have had
an extraordinary "ricochet" effect
on television itself.
Whereas television
taught the magazines
that news
is nothing but entertainment,
the magazines
have taught television
that
nothing but entertainment
is news.
Television programs,
such as
"Entertainment Tonight,"
turn information
about entertainers and celebrities
into "serious" cultural content,
so that
the circle begins to close:
Both the form
and content
of news
become entertainment.
Radio, of course,
is the least likely medium
to join in
the descent
into a Huxleyan world
of technological narcotics.
It is, after all,
particularly well suited
to
the transmission
of rational,
complex language.
Nonetheless,
and even if
we disregard radio's
captivation
by the music industry,
we appear to be
left with the chilling fact
that such language
as radio allows us to hear
is increasingly primitive,
fragmented,
and
largely aimed at invoking
visceral response;
which is to say,
it is
the linguistic analogue
to
the ubiquitous rock music
that is
radio's principal source
of income.
As I write,
the trend
in call-in shows
is for
the "host"
to insult callers
whose language
does not,
in itself,
go much beyond
humanoid grunting.
Such programs
have little content,
as this word
used to be defined,
and
are merely
of archeological interest
in that
they give us a sense
of what a dialogue
among Neanderthals
might have been like.
More to the point,
the language of radio newscasts
has become,
under the influence of television,
increasingly
decontextualized and discontinuous,
so that
the possibility
of anyone's knowing
about the world,
as against
merely knowing
of it,
is effectively blocked.
In New York City,
radio station WINS
entreats its listeners
to
"Give us twenty-two minutes
and
we'll give you the world."
This is said without irony,
and its audience,
we may assume,
does not regard the slogan
as the conception
of a disordered mind.
And so,
we move rapidly
into
an information environment
which may rightly be called
trivial pursuit.
As the game
of that name
uses facts
as
a source of amusement,
so do our sources
of news.
It has been
demonstrated
many times
that a culture
can survive
misinformation
and
false opinion.
It has not yet been demonstrated
whether a culture can survive
if it takes the measure of the world
in twenty-two minutes.
Or
if the value of its news
is determined
by the number of laughs
it provides.
+++
Public Discourse
in the Age
of Show Business",
by Neil Postman,
Penguin Books,
1985,
pages 99 to 113.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Now ... This!"
The American humorist
H. Allen Smith
once suggested that
of all the worrisome words
in the English language,
the scariest is "uh oh,"
as when a physician
looks at your X-rays,
and
with knitted brow says,
"Uh oh."
I should like to suggest
that the words
which are
the title of this chapter
["Now ... This!"]
are as ominous as any,
all the more so
because they are spoken
without knitted brow --
indeed,
with
a kind of idiot's delight.
The phrase,
if that's what
it may be called,
adds to our grammar
a new part of speech,
a conjunction
that does not connect
anything to anything
but does the opposite:
separates
everything from everything.
As such,
it serves
as a compact metaphor
for the discontinuities
in so much
that passes
for public discourse
in present-day America.
"Now ... this!"
is commonly used on radio
and
television newscasts
to indicate that
what one
has just heard or seen
has no relevance
to what one
is about to hear or see,
or
possibly to anything
one is ever likely
to hear or see.
The phrase
is a means
of
acknowledging the fact
that the world
as mapped
by
the speeded-up
electronic media
has no order
or
meaning
and
is not
to be taken seriously.
There is no murder
so brutal,
no earthquake
so devastating,
no political blunder
so costly --
for that matter,
no ball score
so tantalizing
or
weather report
so threatening --
that it cannot be
erased from our minds
by
a newscaster saying,
"Now ... this!"
The newscaster means
that
you have thought
long enough
on the previous matter
(approximately
forty-five seconds),
that you must not
be morbidly
preoccupied with it
(let us say,
for ninety seconds),
and
that you must now
give your attention
to another fragment of news
or a commercial.
Television did not invent
the "Now ... this!" world view.
As I have tried to show,
it is the offspring
of the intercourse
between
telegraphy
and photography.
But it is through television
that it has been nurtured
and
brought
to a perverse maturity.
For on television,
nearly every half hour
is a discrete event,
separated
in content,
context,
and
emotional texture
from what precedes
and follows it.
In part because
television sells its time
in seconds and minutes,
in part because
television must use images
rather than words,
in part because
its audience
can move freely to and from
the television set,
programs are structured
so that
almost each
eight-minute segment
may stand
as a complete event
in itself.
Viewers are rarely required
to carry over
any thought or feeling
from one parcel of time
to another.
Of course,
in television's presentation
of
the "news of the day,"
we may see
the "Now ... this!" mode of discourse
in its boldest
and
most embarrassing form.
For there,
we are presented
not only
with fragmented news
but
news without context,
without consequences,
without value,
and therefore
without essential seriousness;
that is to say,
news
as pure entertainment.
Consider, for example,
how you would proceed
if you were given the opportunity
to produce a television news show
for any station
concerned to attract
the largest possible audience.
You would, first,
choose a cast of players,
each of whom
has a face
that is both
"likable"
and "credible."
Those who apply would,
in fact,
submit to you
their eight-by-ten glossies,
from which
you would eliminate
those whose countenances
are not suitable
for nightly display.
This means that you
will exclude women
who are not beautiful
or
who are
over the age of fifty,
men who are bald,
all people
who are overweight
or
whose noses
are too long
or
whose eyes
are too close together.
You will try,
in other words,
to assemble a cast
of talking hair-do's.
At the very least,
you will want those
whose faces
would not be unwelcome
on a magazine cover.
Christine Craft
has just such a face,
and so
she applied for
a co-anchor position
on KMBC-TV
in Kansas City.
According to a lawyer
who represented her
in a sexism suit
she later
brought against the station,
the management of KMBC-TV
"loved Christine's look."
She was accordingly
hired
in January 1981.
She was
fired
in August 1981
because research indicated
that her appearance
"hampered viewer acceptance."
What exactly does
"hampered viewer acceptance"
mean?
And what
does it have to do
with the news?
Hampered
viewer acceptance
means the same thing
for television news
as it does
for any television show:
viewers do not like
looking at
the performer.
It also means
that viewers
do not believe
the performer,
that she lacks
credibility.
In the case of
a
theatrical performance,
we have a sense
of what that implies:
the actor
does not persuade
the audience
that he or she
is the character
being portrayed.
But what does
lack of credibility
imply
in the case of
a news show?
What character
is a co-anchor playing?
And how do we decide
that the performance
lacks verisimilitude?
Does the audience
believe
that the newscaster
is lying,
that
what is reported
did not
in fact happen,
that
something important
is
being concealed?
It is frightening to think
that this may be so,
that
the perception
of the truth of a report
rests heavily
on
the acceptability
of the newscaster.
In the ancient world,
there was a tradition
of banishing
or killing
the bearer of bad tidings.
Does
the television news show
restore,
in a curious form,
this tradition?
Do we banish those
who tell us the news
when we
do not care for the face
of the teller?
Does television
countermand the warnings
we once received
about the fallacy
of
the ad hominem
argument?
If the answer
to any of these questions
is even
a qualified
"Yes,"
then
here is an issue
worthy
of
the attention
of epistemologists.
Stated
in its simplest form,
it is that television
provides
a new
(or, possibly,
restores an old)
definition
of truth:
the credibility of the teller
is
the ultimate test
of the truth
of
a proposition.
"Credibility"
here
does not refer
to the past record
of the teller
for making statements
that have
survived the rigors
of reality-testing.
It refers only
to
the impression
of sincerity,
authenticity,
vulnerability
or
attractiveness
(choose one or more)
conveyed
by
the actor/reporter.
This is a matter
of considerable importance,
for
it goes beyond the question
of
how truth is perceived
on
television news shows.
If on television,
credibility replaces reality
as
the decisive test
of truth-telling,
political leaders
need not trouble themselves
very much with reality
provided that
their performances
consistently generate
a sense of verisimilitude.
I suspect, for example,
that the dishonor
that now shrouds
Richard Nixon
results
not from
the fact that he lied
but
that
on television
he looked like a liar.
Which, if true,
should bring no comfort
to anyone,
not even
veteran Nixon-haters.
For
the alternative possibilities
are
that one may look like a liar
but
be telling the truth;
or even worse,
look like a truth-teller
but
in fact
be lying.
As a producer
of a television news show,
you would be well aware
of these matters
and would be careful
to choose your cast
on the basis of criteria
used by David Merrick
and
other successful impresarios.
Like them,
you would then
turn your attention
to
staging the show
on principles
that
maximize
entertainment value.
You would,
for example,
select
a musical theme
for the show.
All television
news programs
begin,
end,
and are
somewhere in between
punctuated
with music.
I have found
very few Americans
who regard this custom
as peculiar,
which fact
I have taken as evidence
for
the dissolution
of lines of demarcation
between
serious public discourse
and
entertainment.
What has music
to do
with the news?
Why
is it there?
It is there,
I assume,
for the same reason
music is used
in the theater and films --
to create
a mood
and
provide a leitmotif
for
the entertainment.
If there were no music --
as is the case
when any television program
is interrupted
for a news flash --
viewers
would expect something
truly alarming,
possibly life-altering.
But
as long as the music
is there
as a frame
for the program,
the viewer
is comforted to believe
that there is
nothing to be
greatly alarmed about;
that,
in fact,
the events
that are reported
have
as much relation
to reality
as do scenes
in a play.
This perception
of a news show
as
a stylized dramatic
performance
whose content
has been staged
largely to entertain
is reinforced
by several other features,
including the fact
that the average length
of any story
is forty-five seconds.
While brevity
does not always
suggest
triviality,
in this case
it clearly does.
It is simply not possible
to convey
a sense of seriousness
about any event
if its implications
are exhausted
in less than
one minute's time.
In fact,
it is quite obvious
that TV news
has no intention
of suggesting
that any story
has
any implications,
for that
would require viewers
to
continue to think about it
when it is done
and therefore
obstruct their attending
to the next story
that waits
panting
in the wings.
In any case,
viewers
are not provided
with much opportunity
to be distracted
from
the next story
since
in all likelihood
it will consist
of some film footage.
Pictures
have little difficulty
in overwhelming words,
and
short-circuiting
introspection.
As a television producer,
you would be certain
to give both prominence
and precedence
to any event
for which
there is some sort
of visual documentation.
A suspected killer
being brought into a police station,
the angry face
of a cheated consumer,
a barrel going over Niagara Falls
(with a person alleged to be in it),
the President
disembarking from a helicopter
on the White House lawn --
these are always
fascinating or amusing,
and easily satisfy
the requirements
of
an entertaining show.
It is, of course,
not necessary
that the visuals
actually document
the point of a story.
Neither is it necessary
to explain
why such images
are intruding themselves
on public consciousness.
Film footage
justifies itself,
as
every television producer
well knows.
It is also
of considerable help
in maintaining
a high level of unreality
that the newscasters
do not pause
to grimace
or shiver
when
they speak
their prefaces
or epilogs
to the film clips.
Indeed,
many newscasters
do not appear
to grasp the meaning
of what
they are saying,
and
some hold to
a fixed
and
ingratiating enthusiasm
as they report
on earthquakes,
mass killings
and
other disasters.
Viewers
would be quite disconcerted
by any show of concern
or terror
on the part of newscasters
in the "Now ... this!" culture,
and
they expect the newscaster
to play out
his or her role
as a character
who is marginally serious
but
who stays well clear
of authentic understanding.
The viewers, for their part,
will not be caught
contaminating their responses
with a sense of reality,
any more than
an audience at a play
would go scurrying
to call home
because a character on stage
has said
that a murderer is loose
in the neighborhood.
The viewers also know
that no matter
how grave any fragment of news
may appear
(for example,
on the day I write
a Marine Corps general
has declared
that nuclear war
between
the United States
and Russia
is inevitable),
it will shortly be followed
by a series of commercials
that will,
in an instant
defuse
the import of the news,
in fact
render it
largely banal.
This is a key element
in the structure
of a news program
and all by itself
refutes any claim
that television news
is designed
as a serious form
of public discourse.
Imagine
what you would think of me,
and this book,
if I were to pause here,
tell you
that I will return to my discussion
in a moment,
and then
proceed to write a few words
in behalf of
United Airlines
or
the Chase Manhattan Bank.
You would rightly think
that I had
no respect for you
and, certainly,
no respect
for the subject.
And if I did this
not once
but several times
in each chapter,
you would think
the whole enterprise
unworthy
of your attention.
Why, then,
do we not think
a news show
similarly unworthy?
The reason,
I believe,
is that
whereas
we expect books
and
even other media
(such as film)
to maintain
a consistency of tone
and
a continuity of content,
we have
no such expectation
of television,
and especially
television news.
We have become
so accustomed
to its discontinuities
that we are
no longer struck dumb,
as any sane person
would be,
by a newscaster
who
having just reported
that
a nuclear war is inevitable
goes on to say
that
he will be right back
after this word
from Burger King;
who says,
in other words,
"Now ... this!!"
One can hardly overestimate
the damage
that
such juxtapositions do
to our sense
of the world
as a serious place.
The damage
is especially massive
to youthful viewers
who depend
so much on television
for their clues
as to
how to respond
to the world.
In watching
television news,
they,
more than
any other segment
of the audience,
are drawn into
an epistemology
based on the assumption
that all reports
of cruelty and death
are greatly exaggerated
and, in any case,
not to be taken
seriously
or
responded to
sanely.
I should go
so far as to say
that embedded
in
the surrealistic frame
of
a television news show
is a theory
of anti-communication,
featuring
a type of discourse
that abandons
logic,
reason,
sequence
and
rules of contradiction.
In aesthetics,
I believe
the name given
to this theory
is Dadaism;
in philosophy,
nihilism;
in psychiatry,
schizophrenia.
In the parlance
of the theater,
it is known as
vaudeville.
For those who think
I am here guilty
of hyperbole,
I offer the following description
of television news
by
Robert MacNeil,
executive editor
and co-anchor
of the
"MacNeil-Lehrer
Newshour."
The idea, he writes,
"is to keep everything
brief,
not to strain the attention
of anyone
but instead
to provide
constant stimulation
through
variety,
novelty,
action,
and movement.
You are required ...
to pay attention
to
no concept,
no character,
and
no problem
for more than
a few seconds at a time."
He goes on to say
that the assumptions
controlling a news show
are "that bite-sized
is best,
that complexity
must be avoided,
that nuances
are dispensable,
that qualifications
impede
the simple message,
that
visual stimulation
is a substitute
for thought,
and that
verbal precision
is
an anachronism."
Robert MacNeil
has more reason than most
to give testimony
about the television news show
as vaudeville act.
The "MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour"
is an unusual
and gracious attempt
to bring to television
some of the elements
of typographic discourse.
The program
abjures visual stimulation,
consists largely
of extended explanations
of events
and in-depth interviews
(which even there
means
only five to ten minutes),
limits the number
of stories covered,
and
emphasizes
background
and coherence.
But television
has exacted its price
for MacNeil's rejection
of
a show business
format.
By television's standards,
the audience is miniscule,
the program
is confined
to public-television stations,
and
it is a good guess
that the combined salary
of MacNeil and Lehrer
is one-fifth
of Dan Rather's
or Tom Brokaw's.
If you were a producer
of a television news show
for a commercial station,
you would not have the option
of defying
television's requirements.
It would be demanded of you
that you strive
for the largest possible audience,
and,
as a consequence
and
in spite of your best intentions,
you would arrive at a production
very nearly
resembling MacNeil's description.
Moreover,
you would include some things
MacNeil does not mention.
You would try to make
celebrities
of your newscasters.
You would advertise
the show,
both in the press
and on television itself.
You would do "news briefs,"
to serve as an inducement
to viewers.
You would have
a weatherman
as comic relief,
and a sportscaster
whose language
is a touch uncouth
(as a way
of his relating
to
the beer-drinking
common man).
You would, in short,
package the whole event
as any producer might
who is
in
the entertainment business.
The result of all this
is that Americans
are
the best entertained
and
quite likely
the least well-informed people
in the Western world.
I say this
in the face
of the popular conceit
that television,
as a window to the world,
has made Americans
exceedingly
well informed.
Much depends here,
of course,
on what is meant
by being informed.
I will pass over
the now tiresome polls
that tell us that,
at any given moment,
70 percent of our citizens
do not know
who is the Secretary of State
or
the Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court.
Let us consider, instead,
the case of Iran
during the drama
that was called
the "Iranian Hostage Crisis."
I don't suppose
there has been
a story in years
that received more
continuous attention
from television.
We may assume,
then,
that Americans know
most
of what there is to know
about this
unhappy event.
And now,
I put these questions
to you:
would it be an exaggeration
to say
that not one American
in a hundred
knows what language
the Iranians speak?
Or what the word
"Ayatollah"
means
or implies?
Or knows any details
of the tenets
of Iranian
religious beliefs?
Or the main outlines
of
their political history?
Or knows
who the Shah was,
and
where he came from?
Nonetheless,
everyone had an opinion
about this event,
for in America
everyone is entitled
to an opinion,
and it is certainly useful
to have a few
when a pollster shows up.
But these are opinions
of a quite different order
from eighteenth-
or nineteenth-century
opinions.
It is probably more accurate
to call them emotions
rather than opinions,
which would account
for the fact
that they change
from week to week,
as the pollsters
tell us.
What is happening here
is that television
is altering the meaning
of "being informed"
by creating a species
of information
that might properly be called
disinformation.
I am using this word
almost in the precise sense
in which it is used
by spies in the CIA
or KGB.
Disinformation
does not mean
false information.
It means
misleading information --
misplaced,
irrelevant,
fragmented
or
superficial information --
information
that creates the illusion
of knowing something
but
which in fact
leads one
away from knowing.
In saying this,
I do not mean to imply
that television news
deliberately aims
to deprive Americans
of a coherent,
contextual understanding
of their world.
I mean to say
that when news is packaged
as entertainment,
that is the inevitable result.
And in saying
that the television news show
entertains but does not inform,
I am saying something
far more serious
than
that we are being deprived
of authentic information.
I am saying
we are losing our sense
of what it
means
to be
well informed.
Ignorance
is always
correctable.
But what shall we do
if we take ignorance
to be knowledge?
Here is
a startling example
of how this process
bedevils us.
A New York Times article
is headlined
on February 15, 1983:
REAGAN MISSTATEMENTS
GETTING LESS ATTENTION
The article begins
in the following way:
"President Reagan's aides
used to become visibly alarmed
at suggestions that he
had given mangled
and
perhaps misleading
accounts of his policies
or
of current events in general.
That doesn't seem
to happen much
anymore.
Indeed, the President
continues
to make debatable assertions
of fact
but
news accounts
do not deal with them
as extensively
as they once did.
In the view
of White House officials,
the declining news coverage
mirrors
a decline in interest
by the general public".
This report
is not so much
a news story
as
a story
about the news,
and
our recent history
suggests
that it is not about
Ronald Reagan's charm.
It is about
how news is defined,
and I believe the story
would be quite astonishing
to
both civil libertarians
and
tyrants
of an earlier time.
Walter Lippmann,
for example,
wrote in 1920:
"There can be no liberty
for a community
which lacks the means
by which to detect lies."
For all of his pessimism
about the possibilities
of restoring
an eighteenth-
and
nineteenth-century
level of public discourse,
Lippmann assumed,
as did Thomas Jefferson
before him,
that with
a well-trained press
functioning
as a lie-detector,
the public's interest
in
a President's mangling
of the truth
would be
piqued,
in both senses
of that word.
Given the means
to detect lies,
he believed,
the public
could not be indifferent
to their consequences.
But this case
refutes
his assumption.
The reporters
who cover the White House
are ready and able
to expose lies,
and thus
create the grounds
for
informed
and
indignant opinion.
But apparently
the public
declines to take an interest.
To press reports
of White House
dissembling,
the public
has replied
with Queen Victoria's
famous line:
"We are not
amused."
However,
here the words
mean something
that the Queen
did not have in mind.
They mean
that what is
not amusing
does not compel
their attention.
Perhaps if the President's lies
could be demonstrated by pictures
and accompanied by music
the public would raise a curious eyebrow.
If a movie,
like All the President's Men,
could be made
from his misleading accounts
of government policy,
if there were
a break-in of some sort
or
sinister characters laundering money,
attention would quite likely be paid.
We do well
to remember that
President Nixon
did not begin
to come undone
until his lies
were given a theatrical setting
at the Watergate hearings.
But we do not have
anything like that here.
Apparently,
all President Reagan does
is say things
that are not entirely true.
And there is nothing
entertaining in that.
But there is a subtler point
to be made here.
Many of the President's
"misstatements"
fall in the category
of contradictions --
mutually exclusive assertions
that cannot possibly both,
in the same context,
be true.
"In the same context"
is
the key phrase here,
for it is
context
that defines
contradiction.
There is no problem
in someone's remarking
that he
prefers oranges to apples,
and also remarking
that he
prefers apples to oranges --
not if one statement
is made
in the context
of choosing a wallpaper design
and the other
in the context
of selecting fruit for dessert.
In such a case,
we have statements
that are opposites,
but not contradictory.
But if the statements are made
in a single,
continuous,
and
coherent context,
then they are contradictions,
and cannot both be true.
Contradiction,
in short,
requires that statements and events
be perceived
as interrelated aspects
of
a continuous
and
coherent
context.
Disappear
the context,
or
fragment it,
and
contradiction disappears.
This point is nowhere made
more clear to me
than in conferences
with my younger students
about their writing.
"Look here,
I say.
"In this paragraph
you have said
one thing.
And in that
you have said
the opposite.
Which is it to be?"
They are polite,
and wish to please,
but they are
as baffled by the question
as I am
by the response.
"I know,"
they will say,"but that is there
and this is here."
The difference between us
is that I assume"there" and "here,"
"now" and "then,"
one paragraph
and the next
to be connected,
to be continuous,
to be
part of
the same coherent world
of thought.
That is the way
of typographic discourse,and
typography
is the universe
I'm "coming from,"
as they say.
But they are coming
from a different universe
of discourse altogether:
the "Now ... this!" world
of television.
The fundamental assumption
of that world
is not
coherence
but
discontinuity.
And in a world
of discontinuities,
contradiction is useless
as a test of truth or merit,
because contradiction
does not exist.
My point is
that
we are by now
so thoroughly adjusted
to
the "Now ... this!" world
of news --
a world of fragments,
where events stand alone,
stripped of any connection
to the past,
or
to the future,
or
to other events --
that all assumptions
of coherence
have vanished.
And so,
perforce,
has contradiction.
In the context
of no context,
so to speak,
it simply disappears.
And in its absence,
what possible interest
could there be
in a list
of what the President
says now
and
what he said then?
It is merely
a rehash of old news,
and there is nothing
interesting
or
entertaining
in that.
The only thing to be amused about
is the bafflement of reporters
at the public's indifference.
There is an irony
in the fact
that the very group
that has taken the world apart
should,
on trying
to piece it together again,
be surprised
that no one notices much,
or cares.
For all his perspicacity,
George Orwell
would have been stymied
by this situation;
there is nothing
"Orwellian"
about it.
The President
does not
have the press
under his thumb.
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post
are not Pravda;
the Associated Press
is not Tass.
And there is no
Newspeak
here.
Lies
have not
been defined
as truth
nor truth
as lies.
All that has happened
is that the public
has adjusted
to incoherence
and
been amused
into indifference.
Which is why Aldous Huxley
would not in the least
be surprised
by the story.
Indeed,
he prophesied its coming.
He believed
that it is far more likely
that
the Western democracies
will dance
and dream
themselves into oblivion
than
march into it,
single file
and manacled.
Huxley grasped,
as Orwell did not,
that
it is not necessary
to conceal anything
from a public
insensible to contradiction
and
narcoticized
by technological diversions.
Although Huxley
did not specify
that television would be
our main line to the drug,
he would have
no difficulty accepting
Robert MacNeil's observation
that
"Television is the soma
of Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World."
Big Brother
turns out to be
Howdy Doody.
I do not mean
that
the trivialization
of public information
is all accomplished
on television.
I mean
that television
is the paradigm
for our conception
of public information.
As the printing press
did in an earlier time,
television
has achieved the power
to define the form
in which news must come,
and
it has also defined
how we shall respond to it.
In presenting news
to us
packaged as vaudeville,
television induces other media
to do the same,
so that
the total information environment
begins to mirror television.
For example,
America's newest
and highly successful
national newspaper,
USA Today,
is modeled precisely
on the format
of television.
It is sold on the street
in receptacles
that look like television sets.
Its stories are uncommonly short,
its design leans heavily on pictures,
charts and other graphics,
some of them
printed in various colors.
Its weather maps
are a visual delight;
its sport section
includes
enough pointless statistics
to distract a computer.
As a consequence,
USA Today,
which began publication
in September 1982,
has become
the third largest daily
in the United States
(as of July 1984,
according to
the Audit Bureau
of Circulations),
moving quickly
to overtake
the Daily News
and
the Wall Street Journal.
Journalists
of a more traditional bent
have criticized it
for
its superficiality and theatrics,
but the paper's editors
remain steadfast
in their disregard
of typographic standards.
The paper's Editor-in-Chief
John Quinn,
has said:
"We are not up to
undertaking projects
of the dimensions needed
to win prizes.
They don't give awards
for the best investigative
paragraph."
Here is an astonishing tribute
to the resonance
of television's epistemology:
In the age of television,
the paragraph
is becoming
the basic unit of news
in print media.
Moreover,
Mr. Quinn
need not fret too long
about being deprived
of awards.
As other newspapers
join in the transformation,
the time cannot be far off
when awards will be given
for the best investigative
sentence.
It needs also to be noted here
that new and successful magazines
such as People and Us
are not only examples
of television-oriented print media
but have had
an extraordinary "ricochet" effect
on television itself.
Whereas television
taught the magazines
that news
is nothing but entertainment,
the magazines
have taught television
that
nothing but entertainment
is news.
Television programs,
such as
"Entertainment Tonight,"
turn information
about entertainers and celebrities
into "serious" cultural content,
so that
the circle begins to close:
Both the form
and content
of news
become entertainment.
Radio, of course,
is the least likely medium
to join in
the descent
into a Huxleyan world
of technological narcotics.
It is, after all,
particularly well suited
to
the transmission
of rational,
complex language.
Nonetheless,
and even if
we disregard radio's
captivation
by the music industry,
we appear to be
left with the chilling fact
that such language
as radio allows us to hear
is increasingly primitive,
fragmented,
and
largely aimed at invoking
visceral response;
which is to say,
it is
the linguistic analogue
to
the ubiquitous rock music
that is
radio's principal source
of income.
As I write,
the trend
in call-in shows
is for
the "host"
to insult callers
whose language
does not,
in itself,
go much beyond
humanoid grunting.
Such programs
have little content,
as this word
used to be defined,
and
are merely
of archeological interest
in that
they give us a sense
of what a dialogue
among Neanderthals
might have been like.
More to the point,
the language of radio newscasts
has become,
under the influence of television,
increasingly
decontextualized and discontinuous,
so that
the possibility
of anyone's knowing
about the world,
as against
merely knowing
of it,
is effectively blocked.
In New York City,
radio station WINS
entreats its listeners
to
"Give us twenty-two minutes
and
we'll give you the world."
This is said without irony,
and its audience,
we may assume,
does not regard the slogan
as the conception
of a disordered mind.
And so,
we move rapidly
into
an information environment
which may rightly be called
trivial pursuit.
As the game
of that name
uses facts
as
a source of amusement,
so do our sources
of news.
It has been
demonstrated
many times
that a culture
can survive
misinformation
and
false opinion.
It has not yet been demonstrated
whether a culture can survive
if it takes the measure of the world
in twenty-two minutes.
Or
if the value of its news
is determined
by the number of laughs
it provides.
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