A few years back, I had a journalism career going with columns in magazines and work on other projects. In time, the work dried up and I was out looking for other outlets for my talent. A friend sent me to a magazine geared toward young investors. Since I'd written a financial column for seven years it seemed a perfect fit until I found out that the articles I was supposed to write were limited to fifty words. I've never struggled so hard with assignments. How could I explain business opportunities with a word limit like that? Why even have such a limit? The editor explained that young people don't have an attention span any more.
The Republican national convention is over. The Democratic convention started tonight. Neither one of them will have much of an audience. Though both parties have learned to use the internet and modern technologies to reach out to voters, the politicians still don't understand how short an attention span their audiences have.
When I was young, the conventions meant something because our futures were decided there. Today, the conventions are infomercials, all cut and dried with almost everything decided ahead of time. Nothing much will happen except for long, long speeches that are much too long for the cyberspace generation who won't listen to anything except the YouTube short versions. Even there, this Twitter generation won't pay attention to anything except the biggest goofs.
The Clint Eastwood chair fiasco as of tonight has been watched by 1.5 million YouTube viewers. Mitt Romney's speech has yet to be viewed by 100,000. The night of Romney's speech Michelle Obama was a guest on the David Letterman show and I bet more people watched her than heard that speech.
There was a time when a party's convention gave them a "bump" in the polls. Nothing like that happened to the RNC and I doubt the Democrats will find much change either.
It's time for the parties to re-think their conventions. They need to be more compact. The speeches don't have to be 50 words, but five minutes is enough to get your message across.
A young man gave a great speech (and not a long one either) at the Democratic convention in 2004 and caught the nation's attention. Four year's later he became President. Now every politician is trying to give that great speech which means more and more speeches, most of which so far are not all that inspirational.
The political parties need some good directors to run those conventions and cut down on the oratory. They need to make politics entertaining. A little fact-checking beforehand would certainly be appreciated.
Tonight I took a lovely walk and talked to people around town. Tomorrow, I'll get the abbreviated version of the DNC convention. I, too, seem to have an attention deficit.
The Republican national convention is over. The Democratic convention started tonight. Neither one of them will have much of an audience. Though both parties have learned to use the internet and modern technologies to reach out to voters, the politicians still don't understand how short an attention span their audiences have.
When I was young, the conventions meant something because our futures were decided there. Today, the conventions are infomercials, all cut and dried with almost everything decided ahead of time. Nothing much will happen except for long, long speeches that are much too long for the cyberspace generation who won't listen to anything except the YouTube short versions. Even there, this Twitter generation won't pay attention to anything except the biggest goofs.
The Clint Eastwood chair fiasco as of tonight has been watched by 1.5 million YouTube viewers. Mitt Romney's speech has yet to be viewed by 100,000. The night of Romney's speech Michelle Obama was a guest on the David Letterman show and I bet more people watched her than heard that speech.
There was a time when a party's convention gave them a "bump" in the polls. Nothing like that happened to the RNC and I doubt the Democrats will find much change either.
It's time for the parties to re-think their conventions. They need to be more compact. The speeches don't have to be 50 words, but five minutes is enough to get your message across.
A young man gave a great speech (and not a long one either) at the Democratic convention in 2004 and caught the nation's attention. Four year's later he became President. Now every politician is trying to give that great speech which means more and more speeches, most of which so far are not all that inspirational.
The political parties need some good directors to run those conventions and cut down on the oratory. They need to make politics entertaining. A little fact-checking beforehand would certainly be appreciated.
Tonight I took a lovely walk and talked to people around town. Tomorrow, I'll get the abbreviated version of the DNC convention. I, too, seem to have an attention deficit.
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