Too much of a good thing.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: Words & Images - Author comments on delivery of television news - Brief Article - Column

EARLY IN THE 20TH CENTURY, when radio news brought information from around the world to living rooms across the country, it was educational and even fun to listen to a friendly voice speaking clearly and concisely about the news of the day. That familiar voice was soon augmented by the sounds of the story being told, but it was the lucid, focused voice of the newscaster that made it easy to concentrate on the often-complicated facts coming over the airwaves. At first, there were few distractions--just the single voice--and you listened very carefully to Edward R. Murrow. H.V. Kaltenborn, or Gabriel Heater.

Then television arrived and the sounds were augmented by pictures. But for many years, the newscaster sitting in a studio brought some sense to the chaos of news events organized into a 30-minutes newscast. The friendly guides were Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and later Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw.

Then came the computer and, suddenly, it wasn't fashionable to simply watch one person broadcast the news. The TV screen slowly filled up with more information. Sports scores and stock market quotes started running across the bottom of the screen. Gradually, more and more information was put on the screen until the newscaster became just a piece of the news puzzle. Anyone watching the news who was confused by the barrage of images blamed "Sesame Street" and MTV for creating communication chaos--a consumer attention span of seconds instead of minutes. Others blamed the TV remote control--no station could afford slow-moving sound and images because bored viewers, especially young ones, would switch to another channel. Still others blamed the computer and the Internet. Multitasking became the catchword. Why just have one image on the screen when you could have multiple images and do twice the work in one sitting? The most valuable commodity we have is time. Let's make the most of each second.

CNN, which pioneered many innovations in TV news, has grabbed multitasking to its heart in its newest version of its Headline News Service. This 30-minute program used to be a simple way to catch up on the day's events, neatly divided into hard news, sports, business, and a human interest-entertainment section. You would know at any time of the day what section was on, so it made it easy and efficient to turn on the news to find out whatever interested you.

The 2001 edition of Headline News is a hodge-podge of images that...