ABSTRACT
Earlier we asserted that all television in essence enacted stories in words and pictures, in other words, drama. Even the hard nosed ex-newspaper men protest in vain when they claim that they seek out and present the unvarnished truth, untainted by the arty-farty conceits of the rest of television. A series of reports from a crisis-torn Balkan republic becomes a narrative, comic or tragic in which the reporters act as a chorus. We listen to politicians on radio and consider the debate. We watch them on television to judge their performances, the squirming evasion, the flush of anger and the dramatic put down of an opponent. Even the nightly weather report is a kind of mini soap opera.
