Sound Bite

Sound bite is a term most often used by television journalists, although radio journalists use the term clip in the same way. A bite is one of the staple elements of electronic journalists who face increasing pressure to present their stories in a very limited amount of time. Electronic journalists are rarely allotted the time inside a newscast to include an entire recorded interview, thus they select parts or pieces of the interview and edit them into their reports as sound bites. One collegelevel electronic journalism textbook describes the process this way: “Once the sounds bites have been selected, the story should begin to fall into place around them.” The idea behind this selection is to choose a sound bite that clearly and succinctly conveys meaning or emotion. Objective sound bites are chosen for description or fact. Subjective sound bites are chosen to give the viewer a sense of feeling in the story. Voiceover narration connects the bites together and, when well written, provides context for the bites in the sentences immediately before and after the selections. In television, the name and title of the person in the sound bite is often superimposed on the screen. In radio, the name and title are used in the sentence prior to, or immediately following, the clip.

Sound bites have been criticized most often by politicians, who would naturally prefer that their entire interview be aired on the news. However, there also has been increasing concern among media critics about the effects of the so-called shrinking sound bite. One academic study compared sound bites used in presidential elections since 1968 and found the average length of a candidate statement dropped from 43 seconds in 1968 to 8 seconds in 2000. Critics argue such short sound bites do little to add meaning or information to a report. Critics also suggest journalists are increasingly prone to choosing sound bites that express extreme opinion or overcharged emotion. Such sound bites might attract viewers' attention and provide entertainment value, but critics argue they do little to help viewers understand complex circumstances or issues.

Journalists have often been defined as selectors, wading through documents, interviews, and in the case of television, video to choose the elements that, in the best cases, lead viewers somewhere near to the truth. Newspaper quotes came long before sound bites and neither is likely to go away. The people most likely to be quoted or used in sounds bites know this and prepare themselves with the help of books and articles such as one published in the July 2003 Harvard Management Communication Newsletter, which offers “four secrets to delivering the right sound bites.”