A Parade of Talk

Parade music is traditional, popular, rousing--the very life of a parade. Agreed?

Then why in the name of Great Jumping Jehoshaphat can’t TV reporters shut their mouths when they’re covering a parade?

Watching the presidential inaugural parade Jan. 20, I tuned from channel to channel trying to find one that would give me a sense of witnessing the spectacle instead of attending the most vacuous talk show on earth.

The CNN reporters, after sticking with the parade longer than the others, seemed to conclude viewers were bored. They took camera and sound into the broadcast booth and interviewed Bob Hope and then Chuck Yeager.

At one point, the microphone picked up the vagrant strains of trumpets. “That’s the Coast Guard Band going by,” the reporter brightly informed us. It was nice to have the intrusion identified.

DAVID ZOELLNER

Long Beach