‘Nachman’
for Nov. 13
Read the
complete transcript to Wednesday’s show
Guests: Hume
Horan, Emily Nelson, Walid Phares, Steve Cain, Raghida
Dergham, David Kay
ANNOUNCER: He knows everybody and he rips the big stories wide open and
oh yes, he’s more than just another pretty face, he’s Nachman, Jerry Nachman.
JERRY NACHMAN, HOST: Welcome to Volume One, Edition 86. On page one this
Wednesday, Saddam Hussein bows to the United Nations resolution demanding that
he disarm. The inspectors are preparing to head into
Analysts say it sounds like it is Osama bin Laden on that new audiotape,
so he’s still alive and threatening even more terror. President Bush takes all
of this in stride saying if Osama is still around, it’s just a matter of time.
My name’s Nachman and ladies and gentlemen of
Experts who analyzed an audiotape released yesterday say it certainly
sounds like the voice of the world’s most wanted man. It’s clear the tape was
recorded recently because bin Laden gloats over terrorist attacks made in only
the past couple of months.
The Arab satellite channel, Al Jazeera, obtained the tapes. Here’s a clip
from Al Jazeera with a voice of a translator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The killing of Australians and
Americans in
The whole world allying and combine against the Muslims under the pretext
of fighting terrorism. The gang in Washington, the tyrant of the age, as you
kill, you will be killed. As you attack, you will be attacked.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: When questioned about the tape, President Bush seemed to take it
all in stride.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Whoever put this tape out
has put the world on notice yet again that we’re at war. And that we need to
take these messages very seriously and we will. We’ll chase these people down
one at a time. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. We’ll find them and bring
them to justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: Professor Walid Phares of
Let’s start first with Professor Phares. Your reaction, sir, to what you
heard purportedly from bin Laden.
PROF. WALID PHARES, TERRORISM EXPERT: Well Jerry, first of all, I’m sure
that Steve will tell us more about the phonetics of the videotape. I will tell
you more about the linguistics. I have been reviewing the bin Laden tape for
over a year and a half, and the linguists of the videotape aired yesterday on Al
Jazeera are very similar to his linguist, meaning the choice of words, the
repetition of sentences.
This is only one brain that can do that and this is the brain of Osama
bin Laden unless someone else has provided a clone; I don’t think so. It is
Osama bin Laden, probably in a different health condition. We don’t know.
NACHMAN: Dr. Phares, I want to talk to you about the rhetoric in the tape
and the syntax of the tape. I find historically that most of bin Laden’s
statements are essentially general screeds, propounding on Arab themes and
anti-Western themes, but he seemed to be very specific in this one, unlike him,
and very geopolitical.
Let’s look at what we’ve labeled as number two, an Osama warning where he
says, “What do your governments want by allying themselves with a criminal gang
in the White House against Muslims? Do your governments not know that the White
House gangsters are the biggest butchers of this age? Rumsfeld, the butcher of
Very specific, talking about
PHARES: Different and non different. Different from the past videotapes
aired what ii called globally on Al Jazeera. This is a global message basically
to the Arab Muslim world, regardless of how it will be received in the Western
world and in
To bring this up to the global messenger, which is Al Jazeera, means that
he has decided to move ahead strategically and what his message is all about
today through this audiotape is he that is posing himself as the new killer. He
is now the same Islamist jihadist leader who can reach
This message, basically this audiotape is addressed to the masses of the
Muslim world and the Arab world.
NACHMAN: And yet the specific target of his rage continues to be the
“What Bush, the pharaoh of this age was doing in terms of killing our
sons in Iraq and what Israel, the United States ally, was doing in terms of
bombing houses that shelter old people, women and children with U.S. made
aircraft in Palestine was sufficient to prompt the same among your rulers to
distance themselves from this criminal gang.”
Dr. Phares, this also seems to be a renewed link between him, bin Laden,
and Iraq on which he seemed to...
(CROSSTALK)
NACHMAN: ... to be most silent lately.
PHARES: Yes I come to the
The Arab League now through
In the afternoon or late afternoon, Mr. Osama bin Laden comes and
declares jihad against various actors in international relations as far as
We need to read his mind as he flows through history of the seventh
century and 12th Century fighting against the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), the Persian
empire, the Western Roman empire. That’s where Osama bin Laden is...
NACHMAN: Dr. Phares, let’s welcome Steve Cain, the voice identification
expert. Our technology is apparently not state of the art. Mr. Cain, are you
convinced of the bona fides of this tape? Can you hear me, sir? Mr. Cain...
STEVE CAIN, VOICE IDENTIFICATION EXPERT: I sure can.
NACHMAN: ...are you convinced of the bona fides of this tape? Do you
think it’s legit?
CAIN: Well first of all, I have not been provided any excerpts from it
and without a known sample of Mr. bin Laden’s voice, I don’t think it’s
appropriate to make any comment about whether or not it may or may not be his
voice on the tape.
NACHMAN: You know, it seems like very sophisticated technology, but it’s
been 25 years, 30 years since investigators were able to determine that Richard
Nixon’s secretary erased a piece of White House recording tape, so I guess the
technology has been around for a while.
CAIN: Yes it has, but what you’re talking about is essentially tape
authentication or possible tape editing. That technology is still present in
many of the cases whether it be criminal or civil cases, still involve questions
about whether or not a tape has been tampered with or edited. Your issue, I
think, is more concerned with whose voice is on the tape and that would be voice
identification and that can be done as long as you have a suitably long known
sample of the suspect’s voice, and then, of course, you have a fairly decent
question recording to comparing his.
NACHMAN: More questions up ahead. Steve Cain, Professor Phares, please
hold your thoughts. We’ll come right back on what this means for terror, here,
around the world, now that bin Laden apparently has spoken.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NACHMAN: Despite a $25-million dead or alive bounty, Osama bin Laden
apparently has survived. We don’t know about the state of his health, but he is
well enough to continue making threats.
Steve Cain is with us. He analyzes audio and videotapes. He has degrees
in forensic scientist - in science I should say, and Professor Walid Phares is
an expert on terrorism and Middle East Studies at
Mr. Cain, what is the technology simply put and how efficacious is it?
CAIN: Simply put, it’s a matter of obtaining a suitable number of words,
which are fairly intelligible. In other words, not massed by a lot of noise.
Then getting a sample of any suspect’s voices where in they repeat the same
words or phrases and you basically make a pattern match in a computer, where
then you look for frequency similarities as they vary over time.
NACHMAN: So we all speak...
CAIN: That’s essentially...
NACHMAN: We all speak within...
(CROSSTALK)
NACHMAN: ... a certain harmonic and where the peaks and valleys are, are
individualistic?
CAIN: That’s correct, except in voice printing, we normally concentrate
more on the vowel sounds or what we call the phonemes. That’s what a linguist
would call it and that’s the basic sounds of the English language. So, it’s the
vowel sounds that basically you key in on. They are the ones that produce the
patterns that the expert normally would look at it when he’s trying to make a
match or to eliminate a suspect.
NACHMAN: Degree of probability from zero to 100 percent, how effective is
voice analysis?
CAIN: It’s very effective. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years, 10
years of which was with the government before I went into private practice, so
I’ve worked for both sides, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
NACHMAN: So throw out a number for me...
CAIN: To my - based on published studies even by the FBI who looked at it
over a 15-year period, there’s been as much as a 95 to 99-percent degree of
accuracy associated with the voice...
NACHMAN: So almost fingerprint, almost DNA level matching.
CAIN: I would like to say that, but I’m a proponent of it and I think
that we probably need to do a little more research before we come up with those
kind of database statistics or figures.
NACHMAN: Dr. Phares, you mentioned something that fascinates me and I got
questions on it. The timing, it came out when Saddam was under the gun. It came
out after the U.S. election. Obviously he knows what’s going on in the world.
Why didn’t he do this before the election? Do you think it might have made a
difference? Would it have helped Bush? I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but
you know what I’m thinking.
PHARES: I do know what you’re thinking, and I think you’re thinking right
on target. See, Osama bin laden is not just someone who may be in some of the
caves in Afghanistan or Pakistan. He has a network around the world, including
people who have PhD. in political science, international relations. He may also
have advisers here in Washington, D.C.
I mean come on, we have to be realistic. Certainly when he sends a
videotape to Al Jazeera or when Al Jazeera airs the videotape it already has, we
don’t know, there is a political analysis behind that. Things do not happen just
emotionally. And of course, he was weighing the situation to see, or his
advisers, if the elections that took place a few weeks ago will lead to a
division within the American political spectrum.
Will that lead to a weakening of the resolve of the United Nations? Will
that lead to a Arab League intervention in order to put an end to the American
initiative in the region? All of that was evaluated and analyzed...
(CROSSTALK)
PHARES: ... with a series of strengths.
NACHMAN: There was an election. It appears, at least superficially, that
President Bush has even more consent in the American electoral and popular vote.
Did that tell bin laden, I better fight back now? He’s got more bullets in his
gun.
PHARES: It’s a three-dimensional struggle. You have Saddam Hussein in
Now, those three shields were about to collapse and that’s when Osama bin
Laden comes and say, if you get a U.N. resolution, if you send your inspectors,
if you flex muscles with Iraq, I will come with my troops on another front, and
I will deflect the attention into terrorism.
(CROSSTALK)
NACHMAN: I know we’re hypothesizing. What do you think his reaction was
to the decision by the Arab League to urge
PHARES: Well, the Arab League has a stake in this whole thing. It’s
another game player because most regimes in the Arab world would like to see a
new, more democratic regime taking place in
So, when Osama bin Laden sees that the Arab shield around Saddam Hussein
now is turning against Saddam Hussein, this is the moment, this is the time for
him to make his followers create trouble in various spots. Look at what happened
in
(CROSSTALK)
NACHMAN: Professor Phares...
PHARES: ... and Osama bin Laden has taken the lead today.
NACHMAN: Thank you for being our Rosetta stone today. Steve Cain, many
thanks for your explanations.
Next,
(CROSSTALK)
ANNOUNCER: NACHMAN on
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NACHMAN: Diplomats say it was a foregone conclusion. Saddam Hussein was
in a corner, no allies, no wiggle room, leaving him no choice but to accept the
U.N. resolution demanding that he disarm. So this morning
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMED AL-DOURI, IRAQI U.N. AMBASSADOR:
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: So what’s next? An advance team of weapons inspectors should be
in
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: This was never a question of
accepting or rejecting the resolution. The U.N. resolution is binding on
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: Something has to give in the next few weeks because the
inspectors are going in and the Iraqis continue to insist they have no weapons
of mass destruction despite overwhelming intelligence evidence to the contrary.
Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent for the Arab newspaper,
Al-Hayat, broke the story of
Thanks both for being here. Raghida, you scooped the whole world.
Congratulations.
RAGHIDA DERGHAM, SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, AL-HAYAT: Thank you
very much.
NACHMAN: You want to tell us how you found out?
DERGHAM: Not really, you know...
NACHMAN: Well...
DERGHAM: ... you know better.
NACHMAN: ... I didn’t say who. I just want to know how.
DERGHAM: Yes, actually I had been doing a show earlier for MSNBC earlier
on, on the tape of Osama bin Laden and while I was coming back to the United
Nations I started my phone calls in the car, then I found out that the Iraqi
ambassador was going to be at the United Nations and I figured well, I better
run and see. I smelled something, Jerry, you know that good old thing. I smelled
it and then I confirmed it.
NACHMAN: First rule in journalism, you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Ambassador Kay, your reaction sir.
DAVID KAY, FMR. U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well I think there is no
surprise. This is absolutely consistent Iraqi behavior since the end of the Gulf
War. When faced with the United Security Council and the imminent threat of real
military force, they always adopt a policy of saying we will welcome the
inspectors, come back in.
It happened to me in July of 1991. It’s the behavior after you’re back in
that you ought to look for, not the acceptance of the resolution.
NACHMAN: I need a very brief answer Ambassador. I keep thinking of the
three-card money games they play in
KAY: It’ll be more complicated than that, but it is essentially the
principle of the game. It’s hide-and-seek, back, find evidence that they’re
cheating. You can’t disarm them, but you can find out whether they’re cheating.
NACHMAN: OK, we’re going to ask you to hold it. Raghida and David Kay,
don’t go anywhere.
Many more questions, much on Saddam’s diplomatic maneuvering with the
U.N. after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NACHMAN: In the next half-hour, what the weapons inspectors will expect
to find when they arrive in Iraq and are you getting more words per minute on
primetime TV whether you want them or not.
First the headlines.
(NEWSBREAK)
NACHMAN: Saddam Hussein is complying, at least on paper, with U.N.
demands that he disarm at least for now. Raghida Dergham broke the story here on
MSNBC. David Kay was the U.N. chief weapons inspector in
Mr. Ambassador, any surprises? Any revelations here?
HUME HORAN, FMR. AMBASSADOR TO
NACHMAN: You really think he’s in the bunker?
HORAN: He is in the bunker. He has no friends. Even
NACHMAN: I want to go hard in reverse for a minute because I’ve got this
distinguished panel. Ambassador, I want to stay with you on an earlier issue.
What was your reaction to the apparent revelation that Osama bin Laden is alive?
HORAN: You know, first, is he alive? Who knows. I’d love to see his face
on tape, and I wonder why he was not prepared to reveal it. But secondly, I
think it was-it was an action that plays into the hands of the United Nations,
the hands of the administration.
It is something that should cause Saddam Hussein to grown, because here
he is thinking, let’s hope that something happens that will cause the Americans
not to want to go after me. But now all of a sudden, if the American public sees
that the man who is responsible for 9-11 is somewhere, alive and kicking in the
NACHMAN: Raghida, my next question was to you. Riding up and down those
escalators and elevators in the U.N., hanging out in the U.N. correspondents
lounge, very good food, very low prices, what did your Arab envoys think of
this? Was that a big buzz over there today as well?
DERGHAM: Well, indeed, because it is very good news if people don’t mind
that
NACHMAN: I’m talking about the revelation that bin Laden may be alive.
DERGHAM: Oh, OK. Well, no, that’s-I actually did not speak to the
diplomats about that, but I know one thing, that the fact that this tape came
out, whether bin Laden himself is alive or not, the issue remains that al Qaeda
is functioning and that they have a message to increase the fears and to really
blow up-blow out our serenity. And the issue is to say that they are elusive.
They are still functioning. That we have not won the war against
terrorism or against bin Laden.
NACHMAN: But Raghida, I’d like your response to what the ambassador said.
Mr. Ambassador Horan said that Saddam is kind of in the bunker. He’s now been
essentially ostracized by his fellow Arabs in the
DERGHAM: The Arabs have been pressuring Saddam Hussein to deliver on the
resolution, to accept it and to comply with it. They’ve been saying to him,
look, if you don’t, you’re going to have to understand that you’ll go down all
by yourself and it’s going to be disaster for the Iraqi people and for the
region altogether. And don’t forget, Jerry, there is something called the
survival of the regimes, which these countries want to make sure they maintain.
So the pressure has been on the Iraqi government to comply. There has
been a consensus on this. As to whether this right now-I mean, the worry is that
war plans and the rhetoric of war goes on and the worry is that every time the
Iraqis comply we have people coming out from Washington and other places. And I
think the ambassador has sort of made that clear, to say, look, we’re not going
to believe you.
It’s not good enough. Get lost. I mean, why? Let’s just take yes for an
answer, however, let’s go and verify. Nobody is saying take Saddam...
NACHMAN: Dr. Kay, do you believe that this consensus of Arab opinion
against Saddam is going to make the work of your successors the next phalanx of
arms inspectors any easier?
KAY: I think it’s largely immaterial to it. Saddam has not had any
friends in the region for well over a decade. After all, he invaded
He has no friends there and he knows that. It’s clear to him now, that’s
important, but it doesn’t really affect-the life of the inspector is a life
driven by the horribly hard task they have before them. They have 60 days from
the time they begin to unmask that program and find out and test if he in fact
this time is telling the truth.
NACHMAN: Dr. Kay, I not only agree with you, I want to recall that the
last time the inspectors went in there was an Arab coalition of active
combatants. And yet it didn’t make the inspectors’ job any easier. It wasn’t
just a diplomatic agreement, it was a military consensus. So what do you think
they’ll find when they go in there starting next week?
KAY: I think the inspectors, who are better equipped this time, although
they’re suffering severe resource constraints-most people don’t realize we’re
talking about fielding 80 to 100 inspectors in a country the size of France or
the state of California. It’s a very tough job. I think they will be able to
find out and test whether Saddam this time has changed and is cooperating or
continues to cheat. Look for December 8, when you get the declaration.
NACHMAN: Another question for you, Dr. Kay. The military keeps telling us
about the quantum leaps in improved technology on the battlefield. Have the same
tools that inspectors used grown significantly in their effectiveness in the
four years since inspectors have been there?
KAY: No, I’m afraid there are no J-dams out there or highly accurate
munitions for the inspectors. Sure, tools have gotten better, but there’s not
been a quantum leap, particularly when it comes to the very critical task of
talking to Iraqi scientists and finding out whether they’re telling the truth.
NACHMAN: I’m sorry. Go ahead, Raghida.
DERGHAM: Yes, I would like to say David Kay knows more than anybody else
that the inspectors throughout the years did a very good job. It’s not that they
failed. There are things that remain undone, but let’s give credit to these
inspectors. They did a great job for a very long time.
And what we’re looking at right now is a country that basically the
declarations they’re asked to give, it’s the declarations about past weapons of
mass destruction as well. That means about programs, about scientists, and it’s
rather peculiar here. We’re after scientists, not only after Saddam Hussein.
NACHMAN: Mr. Ambassador, do you foresee anything but deja vu all over
again?
HORAN: You know, this time it could read somewhat different. If we have
more aggressive inspectors probing more deeply, more as they will in that
country, could the very fact that in this dictatorship, all of a sudden there’s
a group of people who are above and untouched by his power, able to move about
at random, representing international reprobation of his regime.
Would that very act of subversive defiance of his dictatorial government
give cause to some elements within, to think, well, Saddam isn’t all powerful?
And there are people out there that disprove of him. And maybe I’m on the wrong
side and maybe we ought to do something about it.
NACHMAN: Were you surprised as an Arabist (ph) and a man of long
experience in the State Department of the state craft that was employed by this
administration, perceived as unilateralist, perceived as cowboys, was able to
get a unanimous declaration from the Security Council?
HORAN: Was it not Nixon who was able to make the oppotura (ph), the
opening to
NACHMAN: Dr. Kay, do you think, given the perception that this Bush
administration has a stiffer spine than the former Bush administration, that the
job of your fellow inspectors will be made somewhat easier?
KAY: Any time the Iraqis believe that real American military force is
possibly going to be deployed against them, the job of the inspectors are
inherently easier. And I think the comparison here is not with the first Bush
administration, which was actually fairly strong in supporting inspectors, it’s
with the
NACHMAN: Raghida, is the
DERGHAM: Certainly. That, and even before. But the point of the matter
right now is not only about what should the diplomatic front or the military
front how could they go together or against each other. What we have right now
is, like David Kay said, it’s very good that we have inspectors going back,
backed by the will and the determination of the international community and the
military right (ph) of the
But, having said that, it’s also important to accept that if there are
ways to avoid that war, you know, that’s not a bad idea. After all, we’re
talking about probably half a million Iraqi civilians, innocent people dying. If
there is a way to avoid that through accepting compliance, well, you know, why
not?
NACHMAN: OK, Raghida.
DERGHAM: I don’t understand why there are people who resist that.
It’s the fear of compliance.
NACHMAN: Thank you Raghida. Thank you Dr. David Kay. Thank you Ambassador
Hume Horan. Thank you all for being here.
HORAN: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
NACHMAN: Up ahead, a break from talk of terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction to talk about talking-have you noticed how fast the actors on prime
time TV say their lines lately? Not the result of caffeine overdose. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NACHMAN: Well, there’s an old saying that
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at what’s happening. They’re getting you to pull
us back by continuing this preposterous life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we’re not the ones playing skeet shoot with their
cabinet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, Ben (ph), I think we’re in this one together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NACHMAN: Well, they were supposed to be talking fast. They weren’t. But
they do. The actors on Aaron Sorkin’s NBC (ph) at “The West Wing” even use
dialogue coaches to teach them how to speed up. Here to talk about this, like a
well-trained Eliza Doolittle is Emily Nelson, who covers network television for
the “Wall Street Journal.”
Emily, page one story in the “Wall Street Journal.” Nice going.
EMILY NELSON, “WALL STREET JOURNAL”: Oh, hey, Jerry.
NACHMAN: What’s the point? Is this being done for aesthetic reasons,
artistic reasons or to deal with a new multitasking generation?
NELSON: Well, there are a bunch of things at play here. A couple of
different theories. Some people say people appear smarter if they’re talking
faster, so that’s something you see play out on “The West Wing,” where the
actors are playing
presidential staffers, and so they have to be talking so fast. So instantly
the audience knows, even if they don’t understand every word, wow, these people
are really smart.
It was also jokingly referred to me as a humor insurance policy, so if
the audience is watching and they don’t find one joke funny, another is coming
right at them.
NACHMAN: Again, is this just because of younger writers, younger
producers, who reproduce how they live their lives and extrapolate that as what
the audience is going to want?
NELSON: No. I don’t know if you can kind of pin it on one generation.
Sure, you know, some of the people involved here are young, but I found so many
people I spoke with quoting “His Girl Friday” to me, and that’s the 1940’s. So
they definitely-they’re aware of a sense of history here.
NACHMAN: OK. Stop right there. You hit a button. One of my favorite
movies of all time, newspaper movie, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and according
to several surveys, the quickest talking movie in the history, and that was done
in 1940. Watch this movie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARY GRANT, ACTOR: This will bring us back together again, just the way
we used to be.
ROSALIND RUSSELL, ACTRESS: That’s what I’m afraid of any time, anyplace,
anywhere.
GRANT: Oh, don’t mock me. This is bigger than anything that ever happened
to us. Don’t do it for me, do it for the paper.
RUSSELL: Scram, Svengali.
GRANT: Now look, if you won’t do it for love, how about money?
Forget the other offer. I’ll raise you $25 a week.
RUSSELL: Listen to me, you great big bubble-headed (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
GRANT: I’ll make it 35 bucks, and not another cent more.
RUSSELL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), are you going to listen?
GRANT: Well, good grief, how much is that other paper going to pay you?
RUSSELL: There isn’t any other paper.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: You were going to say, Emily, how much Cary Grant, the editor,
reminds you of me, right?
NELSON: Exactly.
NACHMAN: That’s what many people have said.
NELSON: And I was going to say it very quickly.
NACHMAN: Yes.
NELSON: Yes.
NACHMAN: So do people understand-this always amazed me, because I come
out of all-news radio and local television-that people really want us to slow
down? I get more e-mail about the fact that I talk slower and my guests answer
slower and they’re all positive e-mails than for any other question.
NELSON: No, that’s interesting. I mean, growing up, I remember every
night at the dinner table my parents told me to speak more slowly. You know,
it’s a style, and that’s what they’re going for. It also, it divides the
audience in a way, so that you’ve got viewers who aren’t getting a lot of the
lines. You know they’re flying right past them, but they can still understand
the plot of a show.
But then you’ve got your core group of viewers who are complete addicts
to the show, and they get the inside jokes. So that way you cultivate this group
of loyal, loyal viewers and they feel like they’re in on the inside joke.
NACHMAN: Well, my sense is one of the things it does is it leaves out a
lot of stuff. So when I see a rerun of a show like “West Wing,” I catch a lot of
stuff I didn’t catch the first time, because it went by too fast.
NELSON: No, that makes perfect sense. Since my article ran, I received
e-mails from some readers who say that they tape the show and then watch it
again in order to get all the jokes. It’s also-I mean, think of how many times
you’ve got the TV on but you’re not really paying attention, you’re getting up,
you’re walking around the house, doing something else, and this is a way to
force viewers to sit in their couch and really watch a show.
NACHMAN: All right, Emily. Take a breath, pause. We only have a few
minutes remaining. So I’m going to have to speed it up in our next segment.
You’re watching NACHMAN on MSNBC. Well you better listen close so you
don’t miss a word.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBRA MESSING, ACTRESS: I’m talking to Will. I’ll meet you there.
Just order me what you’re having.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tofu scramble on a bed of spinach.
MESSING: Yes. But instead of the spinach, I’ll have chocolate chip
pancakes. Oh, and 86 the tofu scramble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NACHMAN: All right. Fast talking. That’s Debra Messing, who plays Grace
on “Will and Grace.” We’re discussing the trendy trend of prime time actors
speaking faster by design. I’m joined by Emily Nelson, who wrote all about that
in the “Wall Street Journal,” where she covers network television.
Emily, you said they have to shoot these shows differently now. They have
to get people from x to y quicker. They have to edit differently.
NELSON: Right.
NACHMAN: They have to write more.
NELSON: No, it’s amazing. It sets off this chain of events. You know,
shows aren’t changing their length, so if people are speaking faster, you’ve got
to write more lines to fit it in a one-hour show.
NACHMAN: So there’s many more pages of script.
NELSON: Oh, many more. When “E.R.” started eight seasons ago, it was
considered fast. And its scripts were about 60 pages then. Nowadays they’re up
to 80 pages. With “Gilmore Girls” (ph), they recently shot an episode that was a
77-page script, and they had to go back and add in another scene because they
came up short.
NACHMAN: And you mentioned that there’s an actor who can watch morning
news and verbatim quote the talking head because she’s so used to memorizing
lots of lines on her sitcom.
NELSON: Right. That’s Alexis Lidell (ph), who is one of the stars of the
“Gilmore Girls” (ph).
NACHMAN: You know, you mentioned MTV. And I remember back when it started
when Bob Pittman (ph), who along with John Lack (ph) created it, said that kids
were nonlinear, whatever that meant. He said that they could multi-task,
whatever that meant. And when I asked him what that meant, he said it means they
will watch TV, talk on the phone, play a record, and-a record-sorry-do their
homework.
NELSON: CD.
NACHMAN: Yeah. And do their homework at the same time.
NELSON: OK.
NACHMAN: Is this what we’re now seeing as a result of all of that?
NELSON: I think maybe that’s some of it. But you know you can look at
“His Girl Friday,” and that still looks fast even after decades of MTV. So I
think it’s just what’s trendy.
NACHMAN: People who buy commercials on prime time, do they have a
position on this as in, we don’t like it?
NELSON: My sense is that they kind of don’t have as much a say in it. I
think their concerns are more about the content of a show and the language and
violence...
NACHMAN: You know...
NELSON: ... rather than the style.
NACHMAN: ... there’s a machine called the time machine, which speeds up
these shows imperceptibly and allows local stations to add a 30-second
additional spot. And these stations are getting into enormous trouble with the
syndicators and the networks who are saying don’t do that to our shows.
NELSON: Right.
NACHMAN: So what do you think will be the next wave? Do you think we’ll
ever slow down and go back to quiet dialogue?
NELSON: You could. I mean, one thing about this trend is, that when they
do pause on the shows, it’s really noticeable. Some of the writers are ending
their shows with a photo montage or with just a music-sort of like a music video
stretch, because they feel like audiences are so wound up.
NACHMAN: OK. We have to stop talking right here. That will do it for our
Wednesday edition of NACHMAN. We thank you for joining us.
A reminder: I’m here every Friday-every weekday at
And don’t miss the “HARDBALL” college tour tonight from the Air Force
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