Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

Standards Set by Radio Medal Award Chairman of Academy Diction Judges Explains Why NBC And East Won Three Times; Raps Wisecrackers Recent presentation of the gold medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for good diction on the radio to John Holbrook, National Broadcasting Company announcer. Left to right: Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of the academy; Holbrook, winner of the medal, and Hamlin Garland, chairman of the Radio Diction Committee of the academy. HAMLIN GARLAND, distin; guished author and chairman of j the Radio Diction Committee of ' the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in the following intertview explains why the better 'known announcers were not candij dates for the radio medal awarded last month to John Holbrook of I NBC. He also reveals the standards by which an announcer's dicjtion is judged. Mr. Garland has been chairman I of the Radio Diction Committee of I the Academy since 1928, when the 1 first nation-wide survey was made to determine the winner of the [radio medal. Prof. George Pierce i Baker, Dr. John H. Finley, Prof. Irving Babbitt, Augustus Thomas land Robert Underwood Johnson are members of Mr. Garland's committee. "In the beginning I want it understood that I am not speaking officially for the committee," Mr. | Garland said, "but just giving my ^personal comment on the audition of the various men whose voices interested me." "Mr. Garland, the first question fwe are all asking is, how is it NBC again wins the medal in the third audition?" the interviewer asked. "The answer is that the ballots ran that way. The officers of the company are interested in promoting better speech. They not only hire the best men available, but Ithey provide constructive criticism of their performances. NBC selects men of university training and provides them with an expert instructor in speech. All this is true in somewhat lesser degree of the CBS system." "Why have the honors gone again to Eastern men?" "Because the announcers of the West and Middle West are less schooled in comparative standards. They speak in the local manner. In every case of decided merit we nave found that the announcer had Deen trained in music and in some (foreign language or had studied labroad, that is to say, he knows by pomparison what constitutes good '{speech. He is aware of standards. Western Handicaps T AM a Middle Western man myi self and I know what the Mid-west;rn speech handicaps are. When I vent to Boston in 1884 I carried vith me a broad-brimmed hat and he flat vowels and the grinding ''s of my birthplace. The first •evelation of my rawness came to ne in listening to the glorious dicion of Edwin Booth. He gave me i standard of comparison. "It is highly significant that sev:ral of our most valued advisory correspondents from the Midwest, he South and the Far West have vritten in to say: 'As a matter of act I have heard no voices in this egion worthy of being considered or the medal.' This does not mean hat there are not good voices in he West; there are, but they are lot heard on the radio. The manners of small stations cannot aford to hire the best men." "What do you mean by accent?" "In current usage it means peculiarity of utterance as when we spettk of a Southern accent or the Yankee accent. These local peculiarties are survivals of pioneer conditions. They are in fact handicaps, for they are often subjects of laughter. Vernacular is amusing to the cultured listener who regards himself as superior to the speaker, but it is no comfort to the man from Texas, Indiana or Vermont to find that his boyhood speech produces a smile when heard in New York or London. We are doing our best to convey to the youth of America a knowledge of what constitutes a pleasing and scholarly use of English. "One of the best voices I hear in the Middle West is that of Sen Kaney of Chicago. I should like to see him giving his whole time to the art of announcing, for his speech is almost entirely free from the reedy quality of the Middle West. Another voice which is a pleasant contrast to the harsh and labored utterances of the eminent speakers he is called upon to announce is that of William Abernathy of Washington. There are several other excellent voices in the West and Northwest, but the stations do not pay sufficiently well to secure and hold the best men." "When you say that the competition is limited to regular station announcers just what do you mean?" "We mean that only those announcers who are under contract by a station to announce every day and almost every hour whatever programs, commercial or sustaining, the station has on its schedule. This, you see, rules out all 'guest announcers' and all special talkers like Lowell Thomas, Floyd Gibbons, H. V. Kaltenborn and the like." "Why is it that some of the most popular announcers are not even mentioned in your report?" For the reason that they do not qualify on the technical side. Our committee is not concerned with glibness, humorous comment or showmanship. We are concerned only with taste and scholarship. We take no account of the popular appeal of a speaker or his program. 'Wisecracking' or 'ad lib' fluency do not count. With us it is all a question of precision and grace, and of authority in the use of musical terms and foreign phrases. In our ballots we ask for percentages in correct pronunciation; that is to say, the proper stress of syllables and articulation, which has to do with the utterance of words. We consider the quality of a speaker's tone and also his freedom from unpleasant or ludicrous inflections, and finally and more important than all we demand a certain cultural quality. Many of the announcers to which I have listened are excellent in pronunciation, clear in articulation and often have rich and pleasing voices but fail in the final category of general cultivation. They sound boyish, insincere or bumptious. The men who win our applause are those who speak from a knowledge of other forms." Consider Content YOU SAY you do not take into account the content of a program. What do you mean by this?" "By this I mean that we try to judge each announcer as a technician apart from the advertising matter he is forced to read. Furthermore, we are careful not to confuse a really beautiful and impressive program with the voice of the announcer as in the case of Howard Claney's dramatic sketch, Leonardo da Vinci, and Basil Ruysdael's 'Red Lacquer and Jade,' one of the most dignified and interesting periods on the air.' From the announcer's standpoint Ruysdael is a lecturer. "Similarly with Howard Claney. In his sketch 'Leonardo da Vinci,' on Miss Sutton's 'Magic of Speech' hour, he was admirable but he was the actor and not the announcer. He does not announce a fine musical program with the authority of Bach or Holbrook. Holbrook was called to my attention some time ago by Augustus Thomas, and my final decision with regard to him came after hearing him announce a Sunday morning program of high class French and Russian music. It was an almost flawless performance and I registered my ballot that hour, not knowing till a week later that this program was given without manuscript — one of the finest extemporaneous announcings I have heard. The taste, the quiet authority and the beautiful tone of that Sunday morning period represented what the Academy medal was founded to promote." "Will the conditions of the fourth audition be the same as those of the third?" "There will be no change. That we have gained much in our three auditions is conceded and my committee is of the opinion that to change any of the essential rules of the contest would weaken the effect of what has gone before. We have the support of many educators and the interest of the announcers. We have awakened the station managers to a sense of their responsibility to the public and we have secured the cooperation of nearly one hundred professors of public speaking and experts in English. We do not say that Mr. Holbrook is the best announcer in America, we merely say that he ranks highest among the voices we have heard." "Mr. Garland, why is it that you haven't mentioned the South?" "I am sorry to say that we have had very little cooperation from station managers in the South. Only one or two stations have sent in the names of candidates. Just why this is so I am unable to say. I have heard one or two excellent voices without being able to identify them. We are hoping that other universities in the South will follow the examples of the University of Virginia and nominate members of their faculty to serve on our advisory committee." Trade Commission Bans Untrue Testimonial Ads TESTIMONIAL advertisements of medicines must state the truth, the Federal Trade Commission announced Dec. 11 in connection with a stipulation entered into with a manufacturer of proprietary medicines. Under Commission procedure the names of parties entering into such agreements are held confidential. The Commission announced that under the stipulation, such medicines no longer will be advertised through testimonials which are not genuine, correct and the duly authorized opinion of the author. If a monetary or other valuable consideration has been paid for a testimonial "then the respondent shall publish along with the advertisement in an equally conspicuous manner the fact that the testimonial was obtained for a consideration." December 15, 1931 • BROADCASTING Page 17