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Why do newscasters always ... pause?

merlyn on 2006-03-03T13:29:57

Why do field radio and TV newscasters invariably... pause before delivering the last few words of their delivery? Was this originally some sort of signal to the studio that they were done, similar to "over" in pilot communications? Who started it? Why do they still do it? Can you tell it annoys me? :-)

"For my use.perl journal... I'm Randal Schwartz."

Murrow?

Ovid on 2006-03-03T18:00:33

I suspect it's a tradition that started with Edward R. Murrow. He used to start his UK broadcasts with "This ... is London". Since then, others have picked up on it. Whenever I catch CNN, I hear James Earl Jones saying "This ... is CNN".

So I guess it might be an today's journalists secretly saying "I wish I was real journalist, like Murrow".

Re:Murrow?

chromatic on 2006-03-03T19:15:42

Is it funny to me because a real journalist would use the subjunctive mood?

Re:Murrow?

sigzero on 2006-03-07T03:06:26

I thought it was because James T. Kirk was so damn popular?

Broken cadence

brian_d_foy on 2006-09-06T13:41:58

I figured that the pause was similar to a broken cadence in music. You expect a chord to resolve, but it doesn't, so it holds your attention.