Al Gore Blames Television

As someone who started in the print medium and then converted to television, but still has a crush on the written word (note the blog), an excerpt from Al Gore's new book struck a chord.

Gore's new book, "The Assault On Reason," argues that reason, logic and truth seem to play a diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions.

But specifically, Gore takes aim at the tube. He makes the case that since television dominates our media culture, it makes it "virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation."

Excerpt:

"In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation. Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They hear, but they do not speak. The well-informed citizenry is in danger of becoming the well-amused audience."

"In practice, what television's dominance has come to mean is that the inherent value of political propositions put forward by candidates is now largely irrelevant compared with the image-based ad campaigns they use to shape the perception of voters."

"To understand the final reason why the news marketplace of ideas dominated by television is so different from the one that emerged in the world dominated by the printing press, it is important to distinguish the quality of vividness experienced by television viewers from the vividness experienced by readers . . . But (Marshall) McLuhan was almost alone in recognizing that the passivity associated with watching television is at the expense of activity in parts of the brain associated with abstract thought, logic and the reasoning process."

Gore's solution? Duh. The Internet.

I'd have more on this, but I have to go shoot my TV story.

As a TV guy, Gore does have a point. But man, it kinda hurts.