Is the age of the soundbite coming to a close? If it is, then we have Peggy Noonan to thank, in part.
One of the many positive things to emerge out of the Obama candidacy this year is the great revival of the art of the speech. Sure, part of Obama's appeal is that melifluous voice, but the thoughts aren't bad either. Particularly noteworthy is the absence of soundbites.
Obama's March 18 performance, The Philadelphia Speech on Race, prompted pundits to comment as much on its form as on its substance. No soundbites! they exclaimed. Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter had maybe the best take on it, writing about how he'd read an advance copy of the speech, then remarked to his wife that "it was well written but contained no eight- to 15-second sound bites to counteract the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s greatest hits. Under the old rules, a 37-minute speech full of complex ideas didn't stand a chance against the excitement of 'good TV.' "
We all know what happened next. Nearly 6 million views on YouTube is what happened next. That phenomenon led Alter to wonder in print if the age of the soundbite may be coming to a close.
It was a good piece, but he caught the trend about 10 years too late. In 1998, in fact, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan recounted the distinguished history of the soundbite from television of the 1960s to today, and like the great speechwriter she is advised us to "never, ever try to write one." "It would be like being a songwriter and trying to write a great five-second section of a song," Noonan wrote.
But Noonan had hope. In the first place, she said, the soundbite phenomenon, and the subsequent dumbing down of political rhetoric, had gotten just about as bad as they could. Second, she said, history's great sound bites (and there are plenty ...) came because they "authentically emerged from thought." They emerged from a sea of ideas, not a contrived tactic to get eight seconds on the evening news.
"You must be serious when you're doing serious work," Noonan says. And finally, 10 years after Noonan lamented that things had gotten as bad as they could, we have a candidate who can express 37 minutes of authentic thought. Hurray.
Authenticity is important, these days. How important? Next post ...
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