"Politicians talk in sound bites

recommended by media manipulators,

which causes democracy to lose its muscle

as the public becomes virtually hypnotized

by four-and-a-half hours of

passive TV viewing every day"

"One of the most valuable things you can have

in the TV business is a time slot following a hit show

because even with a remote,

there [are] millions of us who'll sit and watch a show

and be sufficiently immobilized by it

that we can't even move a thumb muscle

We're turning into a nation of zombies,

lobotomised by the 'Tube'

Al Gore has criticized the "trivialities and nonsense" of celebrity gossip in the media and called on people to focus instead on issues like Iraq and climate change.

Gore, who is promoting his new book "The Assault on Reason," made the comments at a book signing in New York, where he was treated to a rock star reception by more than 1,300 cheering and screaming fans.

"What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about -- or receiving information about -- Britney Spears shaving her head or Paris Hilton going to jail?" Gore asked.

He lamented what he described as the "destruction of the boundary between news and entertainment" and said the United States was "vulnerable as a democracy to mass and continuing distraction."

His new book draws parallels between the US government's approaches to climate change and the war in Iraq.

"Just like the facts available before the invasion of Iraq, these facts about the climate crisis have been repeatedly brushed aside and ignored as inconvenient," he said. "In both cases the facts were ignored."

Gore: Media Strangles Democracy

The media, particularly television, is strangling democracy by not allowing the average person to get more involved in the political conversation, former Vice President Al Gore told "Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer.

As TV news becomes more and more obsessed with shallow topics such as Paris Hilton, politicians talk in sound bites recommended by media manipulators, Gore said, which causes democracy to lose its muscle as the public becomes virtually hypnotized by four-and-a-half hours of passive TV viewing every day.

"Democracy is a conversation, and what made American democracy in the first place over 200 years ago was a new way of communicating that involved average people in the conversation," he said.

"People listen, but they don't have an opportunity to take part in the conversation, and one of the principal reasons why Americans feel they don't have a role to play.

"Their vote doesn't count, their voice isn't heard is because it is mainly a one-way conversation over television. It's beginning to change, and that's the good news."

Gore even evoked chickens becoming paralyzed by fear and repetitive motion and said TV makes people passive.

"Being in the television business& one of the most valuable things you can have is a time slot following a hit show because even with a remote, there [are] millions of us who'll sit and watch a show and be sufficiently immobilized by it that you can't even move a thumb muscle. We're turning into a nation of zombies, lobotomised by the 'Tube'.

"Anybody who has spent time growing up on a farm has probably had that experience [of hypnotizing chickens with repetitive movements], but the point is larger than that.

"The point is that instead of engaging in a free and vigorous discussion that anybody can take part in, instead now candidates for office and those who want to influence public opinion use these sophisticated propagandistic techniques to try to give emotional impressions and sort of, you know, try and herd people this way or that."

Then Gore turned the tables on Sawyer, asking her the difference between news and entertainment.

She replied that news educates and illuminates.

"Wait a minute, this is the headline here, that you agree with what I'm saying," he responded.

Gore believes that what will return the conversation back to the general public is the Internet.

"The great virtue of the Internet is that individuals have open access to it, not only to take what they are interested in but also to contribute their own ideas," he said.

"We've shut ourselves off from that source of strength that's made this nation the greatest nation on Earth, and instead we've been making a series of catastrophic mistakes.

They have left our troops trapped in Iraq. They have created this climate crisis that's so threatening to the future of civilization, and instead we're hearing these slogans and buzz words instead of looking at what the facts are." OTR