I first noticed this issue bothering me a few years ago, when during a mining accident, I tuned to CNN to get the latest news and up to the minute reports. Anderson Cooper was on the scene reporting, but it quickly became obvious that he was not using a teleprompter as he normally does when doing his show, “Anderson Cooper 360″. It was literally painful for me to sit through his reports, but also those of all the other “on the scene” reporters, and I’ll tell you why:
In the past few years, a disturbing trend has affected newscasters who are reporting on live events, such as accidents, earthquakes, plane crashes, and other events such as today’s inauguration.
TV anchors and newscasters seem to have become infected with the “um” virus. It seems impossible for anyone, Anderson Cooper especially, but even Mr. Blitzer and Ms O’Brien, to complete a single sentence without injecting multiple “filler words” such as “um”, “ah”, “er”, “eh”, and other such nonsense words.
For instance, while I type this, (6:31 EST) Mr. Blitzer is saying, and I quote: “I think all of the states uh, ah, are being represented in this, uh, in this parade before the President of the United states, uh, and the First Lady. “ And at 6:52: “Uh, uh, only moments ago, by the way, uh, the former President of the United States, uh, George W. Bush in Midland, uh, spoke to a crowd there…” And at 7:01, Anderson Cooper reporting: “Right now let’s uh, check in, ah, well actually let’s just, um, stay with what we were doing, ah, we have witnessed some immense changes…”
And I am left sitting here thinking, “What? What the heck are they trying to say?”
By no means is this a CNN-only affliction, I see it on every network during any sort of live reporting, but as a leader in the field of up-to-the-minute news such as CNN, I would think the network would want to take steps to overcome this malady, and remind all on-screen reporters to avoid using these filler words and avoid stuttering when reporting.
It shocks me that nobody, not the directors, the producers, editors, Jane Maxwell (director of live events for CNN for decades), or other people responsible for putting out quality live-news programming has ever reviewed the live broadcasts and noticed just how many times these filler words are used. It seems that this new generation of reporters either never had classes in public speaking, or they have forgotten the lessons taught in the most basic classes on reporting live events.
It seems to me that this is something that even the most basic of journalism schools would address in the first year, heck, even a community college would teach: “Don’t stutter, don’t use filler words, they make you look like you have no idea what you’re doing.” Are these new newscasters a reflection of the escalating decline in American education that is so very evident in blogs all over the Internet, with heinous fourth-grade spelling and grammatical errors from even respected individuals. Are reporters truly incapable of forming sentences without resorting to saying “um” every few words? Are they simply not trained for live public speaking? What is the cause of this viral infection in the media today?
I’m not the only one that has noticed this trend; people I talk to about what network they watch for things like live event programming, also have communicated their frustration with trying to understand what is actually being said through all the “um”s and “ah”s that reporters inject into each sentence.
It seems to me that this was never an issue back in the days of the iconic anchormen, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, David Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, Harry Reasoner, and others of the 70s and 80s.
It needs to stop. It is so very hard to sit through even a few sentences of live programming when every other word is a nonsense, gibberish filler word; the intent of whatever these people are saying is completely lost while the viewer tries to ignore all the filler words and figure out what the heck these people are actually trying to say.
I urge those in charge, the directors of programming, producers, editors, and others, to realize that your viewers do notice the reporters stuttering through their comments with filler words, that it is very distracting, not to mention unprofessional, and that it reflects on your network, and your quality of reporting. I urge you to take even a simple step such as putting out a memo reminding all reporters that these filler words are distracting and unprofessional.
