Just watched per request of a friend regarding a certain topic. Don’t the occasional crazy camera shots, crazy camera angles, and useless tricks (like flipping to B&W) drive ya nuts? I don’t know what effect they’re trying to invoke in the audience? It just breaks my concentration on what is being said. I can only WAG we’ve reached an age where the avg attention span is under 30 seconds??? How sad. 
Any WAGs?
It’s MTV editing for soccer moms?
THe scenes per second… (I know there is a term for it) on filsm have increased as our attention span has decreased.
I don’t think the Oprah show is shot so different from anything else on TV. Heck, consider ER. If you blink while watching THAT show, you might miss a vital part of the plot.
Freido - You hit the nail on the head. Very annoying. I never cared for the creation of MTV et al. When MTV came out, IIRC, Nightline did a story on how this was going to radically change the way the media and the we in which we get information. I bah humbugged and pooh-poohed it away, but it is true. We’re a soundbyte society where we sacrifice details (and accuracy) by wrapping up the news in a nice little package (a-la “MTV-style”) with all the glitter and fluff.
One additional note: When I was in school, a teacher had a revelation that we get noisy every 20 minutes - just as if a commercial had come on. It was as if our attention span was geared to the TV timeslots of the 1970’s and 1980’s. So, goodness knows what the attention span is today! I mean, between commercials and the urge to go channel surfing… - Jinx