Ran across this G.K. Chesterton passage today:
For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers. The speeches in our time are more careful and elaborate, because they are meant to be read, and not to be heard. And exactly because they are more careful and elaborate, they are not so likely to be worthy of a careful and elaborate report. They are not interesting enough. So the moral cowardice of modern politicians has, after all, some punishment attached to it by the silent anger of heaven. Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.
— “On the Cryptic and the Elliptic,” All Things Considered (1908)
And what a difference a century makes, when today we instead complain about politicians striving too hard for the flashy and emotional, for the brief sound-bite of the 7 p.m. News, uttering slogans rather than “careful and elaborate” thoughts — meant to be heard, not read.