Media
Miller, William Lee
Media IN MEDIA RES TOO MUCH BACKGROUND NOISE I AM GOING to tell a true story, without names, but also without what Huck Finn would call stretchers. I remembered the story, for reasons that will...
...When we began the interview again the production team, decided that the living room wasn't the best room after all, and asked if we could move into the kitchen...
...When we began to record there came a sound from outside...
...I had called a distinguished older political activist and former Ambassador, now in retirement up there, to request a taped interview for a documentary program...
...He changed tapes and finally allowed us to begin again...
...I can't understand what it is...
...Yes, of course we could...
...He asked if he could use the telephone, and repeatedly called Washington and New York, tying up this family's phone for forty-five minutes...
...It was winter...
...To translate it into the big time world of television, you must multiply its implications by a factor of-what...
...But that large episode in our recent cultural and political history is not my topic...
...Twenty...
...I explained, embarrassed, that it wasn't like the world of mere writers...
...Chagrined, we sought other subjects...
...Fifty...
...Could we turn that off...
...Let them come too," he said, with the manners derived from another world...
...The sizzle, it was now explained, was the roast beef she had in the oven, cooking for our dinner...
...At last, a little chilly, we were well into the interview when the technician waved his hand and stopped us yet again...
...I was working on this program not on my own initiative but at the request of, and-as I learned to my sorrow-under the direction of, a national radio organization...
...my story is a small one...
...Fortunately the engineer had kept one piece of tape with him in the front of the plane, so it was warm enough to function...
...The producer, not the writer/consultant, had the final say...
...At least when we finally ate it the media people didn't complain that it was underdone...
...But there was a problem with the kitchen: in that room one could hear the sound of the heating system, working hard on this cold day...
...there would be a producer and technician with me, with the machinery...
...The tape had been in the unheated baggage section of the little Air New England plane on this very cold January day, and had frozen its magic powers...
...I remembered the story, for reasons that will be apparent, while watching television coverage of the hostage drama, when reporters and their crews dragged cameras and cables through the living rooms of the hostages' families...
...The retired Ambassador, our host, met me at the little airport to give me a ride to his house...
...Very cold with snow and ice in Northern New England...
...There was a striving for a high level of intellect, too, and of art in its other meanings, but perfection in these regards is not as easy to identify, or to attain, as sonic perfection...
...The producer, overhearing us, abruptly intervened...
...Could we stand it, for the period of the interview, if the heat were turned off...
...It belonged to our hosts, so our hostess walked the dog to the house of distant friends, and asked them to care for it until this experience was over...
...Whose dog is that...
...As we had examined the house for a site for this event we had noticed that our hostess, a lovely woman in her seventies, had a fully set table, in the dining room, waiting for some guests: us...
...Stop," she said...
...It was to Jast forever and to reflect the "state of the art,"-in sound...
...Eventually he found somebody to advise him and decided that the problem was the cold: nature taking this little slap at culture...
...He would talk to me all I wanted to talk...
...I didn't come alone...
...While the engineer arranged his machines our host and I began to have a pleasant chat about the subject of the broadcast...
...asked the engineer...
...A little frayed, we started again...
...We stopped the interview and waited until the machinery was set up again...
...It is important that you understand, if you draw any moral from it, that the media folk, though young and therefore unavoidably products of the media epoch, are nevertheless honorable, attractive, and-in their way, to a fault-conscientious...
...Yes, of course we could...
...We were rolling along in the interview, when he waved us to yet another halt...
...It was a Saturday, and he had a hard time finding an engineering genius...
...After some deliberation they chose the living room...
...There is something wrong with my tape," he said...
...In the case of a conflict sound would win...
...He was enormously helpful and generous, and invited me to come up to his home in the snow, where he and his wife would be happy to put me up overnight...
...WILLIAM LEE MILLERunderdone...
...This program had pretensions to the most extraordinary excellence-sonically...
...You may talk about anything else...
...But don't burn off the interview...
...When die producer and technician arrived on another plane they declined a ride, rented a car, and followed us to his house...
...We will be happy to have them...
...I am still getting a little background noise," he said...
...A dog's bark...
...Once there they promptly set about searching for the best room for recording...
...What is that sizzle...
...WILLIAM LEE MILLER...
...But you must also understand that this tale involves mere radio, and persons who are not eminent, and a program for a relatively small audience...
...When I told this tale to a man who produces programs for one of the TV networks he said, "That's the story of my life...
...The needle on the engineer's big recording machine jumped and bounced...
Vol. 108 • May 1981 • No. 9
