By Robert Krulwich Itell stories on television. Everybody knows TV news is ephemeral. But the sad truth is news on network TV has become so smooth, so polished, the typical story moves through the audience like a suppository. Radio reporters learn to write with calculated vividness, pushing the listeners to paint images in their own heads so they unwittingly become co-authors of the story. On the radio, a story well told sticks for days, years.
TV is harder.
Good television reporters have to learn how to work the room. This distance matters. Every good television reporter knows the real job is to grab the audience's eyes and hold them tight through the storm. It is authoritative, cadenced, smooth, dispassionate, articulate. It doesn't gulp or waffle or giggle.