Tongue-tied

-- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/20/2000

Howard Stringer, Sony's chairman and CEO, got the Communications Award for leadership from the Center for Communication, but talking about the difficulty of understanding got him some laughs at the awards luncheon earlier this month. He recalled that, at a well-publicized Senate hearing about media violence while he was president of CBS Broadcast Group, a politician showed a sitcom clip that was mocking the violence hearings themselves-but the senator didn't get it.

"Try explaining the word 'satire' to a politician in full cry," Stringer exclaimed. "The more I tried, the more I sounded like Gomer Pyle. I looked like a 6-year old child trying to spell 'chrysanthemum.'"