I'm Closing My Ears!

Posted: Aug 27, 08 8:45am

Three months ago I wrote that there was no point in paying attention to anything that television Talking Heads had to say on the subject of the coming election.* It was too early for any of the polls to be reliable, I said, citing my political reporter friend Walter Shapiro, who wrote on salon.com that pre-convention forecasts “have the predictive powers of a 7-year-old dressed up as a swami and using an upside down goldfish bowl to peer into the future.”

Now the first convention is upon us and Walter may be ready to concede that political talk shows can at this point add value to the electoral debate. Not me. When I said “Not Yet” I really meant “Never.”

That is how often I want to hear some self-important prognosticator Explain It All to Me via the television screen. Even if he or she is from my side of the aisle. Forget the split between Democrats and Republicans; there is another division that is central to our political process - between television journalists and print journalists.

I know that many of the sound bite sluts chattering inanely on political talk shows are in fact print reporters in their other lives. Where their work is not inane. But that just proves my point - Talking Heads are not necessary for an informed citizenry. (In this regard, I consider the Internet to be a print-equivalent. My point is that if you have something to say, WRITE IT DOWN. Don't blather some truncated and incoherent version of your opinion on television where the only way to get air time is to interrupt.)

My brother-in-law, a professor of media studies, recently conducted an experiment in class. He had his students watch televised speeches by politicians. Just the speeches, no intros or post-hoc commentary. Then they decided for themselves what they had just heard - and found that in many cases it bore little resemblance to what the commentators claimed had been said.

Really, you would do better to watch 7-year-old swamis in turbans (now there would be some interesting talking heads!)

* http://www.tbd.com/content/discussion/156857