Sound Bite Democracy
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Sound Bite Democracy by Daniel C. Hallin tyranny of the sound stories and the role of the journalist in bite has been universally putting them together. Today,TV news is denounced as a leading much more "mediated"by journaliststhan cause of the low state of it was during the 1960s and early 70s. An- America's political dis- chors and reporterswho once played a rel- course. "Ifyou couldn't say atively passive role, frequently doing little it in less than 10 seconds," former gover- more than setting the scene for the candi- nor Michael Dukakis declared after the date or other newsmaker whose speech 1988 presidential campaign, "it wasn't would dominate the report, now more ac- heard because it wasn't aired." Somewhat tively "package"the news. This new style of chastened, the nation's television networks reporting is not so much a product of now are suggesting that they will be more journalistic hubris as the result of several generous in covering the 1992 campaign, converging forces- technological, politi- and some candidateshave alreadybeen al- cal, and economic- that have altered the lowed as much as a minute on the evening imperativesof TV news. news. However, a far more radical change To appreciatethe magnitude of this ex- would be needed to returneven to the kind traordinarychange, it helps to look at spe- of coverage that prevailed in 1968. cific examples. On October 8, 1968, Walter During the Nixon-Humphrey contest Cronkiteanchored a CBS story on the cam- that year, nearly one-quarterof all sound paigns of RichardNixon and Hubert Hum- bites were a minute or longer, and occa- phrey that had five sound bites averaging sionally a major political figure would 60 seconds. Twentyyears later,on October speak for more than two minutes. Seg- 4, Peter Jennings presided over ABC'scov- ments of that length do not guarantee elo- erage of the contest between George Bush quent argument,but they do at least allow and Michael Dukakis that featured 10 viewers to grasp the sense of an argument, sound bites averaging8.5 seconds. to glimpse the logic and characterof a can- Today's television journalist displays a didate. By 1988, however, only four percent much differentattitude toward the words of of all sound bites were as long as 20 sec- candidates and other newsmakers from onds. The average was a mere 8.9 seconds, that of his predecessor. Now such words, barely long enough to spit out, "Read my rather than simply being reproduced and lips: No new taxes." transmittedto the audience, are treated as The shrinkingsound bite is actually the raw material to be taken apart, combined tip of a very large iceberg: It reflects a fun- with other sounds and images, and woven damental change in the structure of news into a new narrative.Greater use is made of WQ SPRING 1992 34 COVERING THE CAMPAIGN outside material, such as "expert" opinion intended to put the candidates' statements and actions into perspective, and "visuals," including both film and graphics. Unlike their predecessors, today's TV journalists generally impose on all of these elements the unity of a clear story line. The 1988 ABC report on the Dukakis campaign has a single organizing theme that runs from be- ginning to end: Dukakis's three-part "game plan." By contrast, on the Cronkite broad- cast Bill Plante offers some interpretation of Nixon's strategy, but his report does not have a consistent unifying theme. It simply ends with Nixon speaking. The modern "wrap-up" is another contemporary con- The GettysburgAddress rendered in the standard the 1988 an 8.9-second sound bite. vention that has put the journalist at center of campaign: stage, allowing him to package the story in themselves. They do not explain, for exam- a way that earlier reports normally were ple, why sound bites shrank much more not. As a result of these changes, sound radically for certain types of people than for bites filled only 5.7 percent of election cov- others. In 1968 the average sound bite for erage during Campaign '88, down from candidates and other "elites" was 48.9 sec- 17.6 percent 20 years earlier. onds; for ordinary voters it was 13.6 sec- onds. By 1988 the elites were allowed only transformation of television's 8.9 seconds, voters 4.2 seconds. Film edi- campaign coverage is part of a tors in 1968 knew how to produce short broader change in television jour- sound bites, but they did not consider them nalism. One reason for that change is the appropriate or necessary when covering technical evolution of the medium, not major political figures. only in the narrow technological sense - A second reason for these changes has graphics generators, electronic editing to do with the political upheavals of Viet- units, and satellites - but in the evolution of nam and Watergate, as well as the evolu- television "know-how" and an emerging tion of election campaigning, which television aesthetic. It simply took televi- pushed all of American journalism in the sion people - often, until recent times, direction of more active, critical reporting. trained in radio or print- a long time to Of course it was not only journalism that develop a sense of how to communicate changed. After hearing some of my conclu- through this new medium. Much of the sions about sound bites and packaging in television news of the 1960s and early 70s, 1990, NBC's John Chancellor responded by a period lionized today as the golden age of saying, "Well, the politicians started it." the medium, seems in hindsight not only And there is much truth to this. In 1968 the technically primitive compared to today's Nixon campaign hired Roger Ailes, for- but less competent - dull, disorganized, merly a producer of the Mike Douglas and difficult to follow. Show, to create a series of one-hour televi- Yet technological explanations for po- sion shows in which Nixon would be ques- litical and cultural changes rarely stand by tioned by "ordinary" citizens. These shows WQ SPRING 1992 35 COVERING THE CAMPAIGN were built around "production values" of a mission, and the public, particularly since sort that television journalists had barely the quiz show scandals of 1959. By the begun to consider. According to the memos early 1970s, however, individual station reproduced in Joe McGinniss's The Selling owners were discovering that local news of the President, 1968, Ailes even carefully shows could make a great deal of money; measured the length of Nixon's answers to indeed, by the end of the decade, it was questions and coached him to shape and common for a station to derive 60 percent shorten them to the medium's needs. of its profit from local news. As compe- Responding to alarms about the threat tition intensified, stations hired consultants of media manipulation by political image- to recommend ways of holding viewers' at- makers, journalists soon began taking a tention, and the advice often pointed in the more adversarial stance toward the candi- direction of more tightly structured and dates, dissecting their statements and de- fast-paced news presentations. scribing their image-making strategies. This Similar competitive pressures began to has made campaign reporting more analyti- build at the network level after 1977, when cal - and also more negative. Suddenly ABC began its successful drive to make its campaign aides were called "handlers," news division equal to those of CBS and and by 1988 TV journalists were broadcast- NBC. The rise of cable and independent ing stories of unprecedented toughness, stations in the 1980s crowded the field still such as this one by Bruce Morton on Sep- more, and the Reagan administration's sub- tember 13, 1988: stantial deregulation of broadcasting re- duced the political impetus to insulate the "Biffi Powie!It's not a it's not a Bang! bird; news divisions from ratings criteria. The plane; it's presidentialcandidate Michael Dukakisin an Ml tank as staffand report- barriers between network news and the ers whoop it up. In the trade of politics it's rest of commercial television began to fall. called a visual If candidate is your Network TV journalists have since felt in- seen in the polls as weak on defense, put him in a tank." creasing pressure to incorporate the same kind of "production values" as local news- Still, the turn toward analytical and casters and the rest of television. sometimes more adversarial reporting did It should be said that TV news is now not dictate the more staccato pace of news much better in many ways than it was two reporting. The third factor behind the decades ago. It is, first of all, often more change was a major shift in the economics interesting to watch. It is also more serious of the broadcasting industry. Until the journalism. Media critics pressed the net- 1970s, the networks viewed news as a pres- works to be less passive, to tell the public tige "loss leader." CBS and NBC had ex- more about the candidates' image-making panded their evening news broadcasts from strategies, and the networks have re- 15 to 30 minutes in 1963 not to make sponded. This is surely an advance. Some money but to make a show of serious pub- of today's more analytical stories also in- lic service in response to criticism by Con- volve a kind of coverage of serious issues gress, the Federal Communications Com- that was uncommon years ago, including Daniel G Hattin, associate professorof communicationat the Universityof California,San Diego, is currentlya Fellow at the FreedomForum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.This is a shortenedversion of an essay that won the 1990 Essay Contest in Media Studies, sponsoredby the Wilson Center'sMedia Studies Project.Copyright © 1991 by Daniel C.