Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Talk is Not News


Quote of the day:
“He had, by now, the look of a man who was waiting for something which had happened long before.”
--William Gaddis

In "Masters of the Offhand," I said:
“We have slipped into sometimes labeling our constant stream of talk-radio personalities as ‘commentators’ or, worse, ‘analysts.’ We sometimes do not see the reality that they are really highly-skilled masters of getting attention through expressing offhand, ad-libbed opinions. They are, above all, entertainers working without scripts.”

I bring this up because of something reported in Gallup’s annual Lifestyle survey, which was conducted in December. The survey asked how often Americans got their news from various sources. 20% said they got some of their news from radio talk shows every day.

The good news is that most people reported more than one daily source. 55% watched local TV news, 44% read local newspapers and 35% watched nightly network news programs.

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