roskos@BBN.COM> (02/08/90)
aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) writes: > Television is altering the meaning of "being informed" by > creating a species of information that might properly be > called disinformation. This is very true, I think. It's true of the print media as well. The extent to which it is true, I've found, varies depending on what part of the country you are in. For example, in Seattle, where I lived for several years, it seems impossible to find objective reporting. Here in Washington you get a very wide variety (and very diverse opinions by different people on which is the most objective), but that tends to be the exception, and is maybe because there are more people here who *know* what is going on and will criticize the papers if they say something else. This is one of the advantages of radio; this despite the fact that a large number of the radio stations serve specific "propaganda" roles (sometimes very obviously so; sometimes amazingly well-polished). The advantage is not in the objectivity or depth of the reporting, but in the fact that you can get more of it. In a given city you can usually only get a few newspapers. The TV news is generally limited because of the target audience having limited interest (as discussed in the other quotes not reproduced above). One of the most interesting aspects of this is the opportunity of seeing how others see us, if only the official position (since one may suspect that the official position may be what a country's citizens also are told). One of my favorites in this regard is Alistar Cooke's "Letters >From America," a 15-minute program on the BBC on weekends (e.g., 6:15 EST Sundays). Cooke tends to "explain" events in the US to people in England (or, that is the perspective he takes, anyway), and tends to refer to historical events that are not widely remembered in the US, but which have analogies to current events. It's a good program to listen to, even just to listen to Cooke's very calm, clear way of speaking. Another particularly good program is the program on WCSN which immediately follows their opening 5-minute news brief, called "News Focus". It tends to have a lot of depth and a good bit of detail. (Unfortunately at present WCSN is very difficult to hear here due to the inteference I mentioned yesterday.) I used to enjoy the BBC's news programs, partly because of the same thing that seemed to bother a lot of people: the way the news was read. They were always very calm and detached, with long pauses between each distinct news item, and with the headlines clearly read, again with pauses to let you think a minute about it, before and afterwards. It gave you time to absorb each individual item, and the headlines before and after reminded you of what you'd heard. From a pedagogical standpoint it was *very* good, and I was quite disappointed when they eliminated it in favor of a faster-paced, more vocally inflected reading about a year ago. A number of the shortwave news programs use the headline-before-and-after format, but they run quickly through them, without the pauses, which loses some of the effect and benefit. I can't imagine the others doing it the old BBC way; certainly not the exaggeratedly enthusiastic VOA or the somewhat brief WCSN (in their 5-minute news program, I mean). It was something that was distinctly British, and had a sort of venerable civility about it. It surprised me that they decided to change. [The above are, quite obviously, my personal opinions.] -- Eric Roskos (roskos@IDA.ORG or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL)