PBS Front Line

[Leo Anthony Vale]

The other day I'm listening to Day to Day on NPR on earphones while at a coffe shop.

The anchor was introducing an interview with Ted Koppel & I could have sworn he said "Koppel's upcoming talkumentary on the Discovery Channel".

Thinking it over I thought I must have misheard, cheap earphones & a noisy coffee shop.

But I still thought it was a useful term for describing the all too common PBS Front Line style of documentary.

Wall to wall narration, broken only by the talking heads. It's documentary as illustrated lecture.

 

I listened to the beginning of the story again prior to writing this and I'm now certain the anchor said "talkumentary".

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=14990155

[Patrick Neary]

now if they can just come up with a term for narrative features that are shot the same way...

 

talking head-talking head-talking head-talking head-talking head. ugh.