Posted on 04/03/2004 7:48:07 AM PST by GulliverSwift
On Thursday evening, the basement of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church rang with passionate denunciations of institutional racism. Community leaders called for a boycott, spoke of arrogance toward blacks, and threatened a class-action lawsuit.
Their unlikely targets? Institutions that the causal observer might think would be bedfellows of the black community: The Democratic Party and Air America, the country's first full-scale attempt at a commercially viable liberal talk-radio network.
Something has gone terribly wrong. The launch of Air America was supposed to agitate Republicans and conservative talk-show stalwarts. Al Franken, the biggest name on the new network's bench, explained in his opening monologue during Wednesday's debut broadcast that he named his noon-to-3-p.m. flagship show The O'Franken Factor, "for one reason, and one reason only: to annoy and bait Bill O'Reilly." He explained that Air America's mission is to "take back the country" from the right wing and, especially, the Bush administration. "In the 2000 election, when George W. Bush said he was against nation building," Franken intoned, "we didn't realize he only meant our nation."
Later that evening, Janeane Garofalo took similar potshots at the Republicans during her three-hour show The Majority Report, named in reference to the Democrats winning the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election. Over the first couple of days, Air America's midtown Manhattan studios hummed with the voices of Lewis Lapham, Al Gore, former U.S. secretary of labour Robert Reich, Michael Moore, John Mellencamp, Ralph Nader and Sen. Bob Kerrey.
A few miles north, black hearts were breaking at the sound of this proud parade of white liberals. Air America is still finding placement on stations across the country, but in New York it is leasing the time for its 19-hour broadcast day on WLIB-AM 1190, which was until this week a pillar of the black community. For three decades, the station had broadcast a mix of talk radio, funky music and news reports on local and Caribbean issues.
But 'LIB was a perennial money loser, unable to pull enough advertisers to its tiny market share, and Air America made an offer the owners apparently couldn't refuse. To some in the black community the action looked predatory, the political stripes of the predator irrelevant because they don't see a difference anyway between Democrats and Republicans.
Bob Law, an activist and former talk-radio veteran, convened the Thursday night rally in Harlem to help organize a response. In front of a small but vocal crowd that often echoed his words in a preacher's call-and-response, Law offered a primer on the economics of radio in the United States as he sees them. He accused the broadcast ratings service Arbitron of intentionally undercounting blacks and suggested Madison Avenue prosecutes an "anti-black strategy." "Ethnic radio stations are kept poor by design," he bellowed, promising a class-action lawsuit against Arbitron.
"The advertising industry is literally subsidizing white radio stations. They take your money for granted, just as the Democrats take your vote for granted."
In the audience, Amadi Ajamu nodded and spoke of her own frustration at the loss of 'LIB. "They're turning this into a white Democratic Party instrument, turning it into something drastically different than what had been built through the years," she said. "We now don't have a voice for our issues like reparations, education, police brutality."
Law chastised the black community for patronizing shops that don't advertise on black radio stations and listed off the other black stations around the country that are either dying or already have been sold and reformatted. He echoed a long-standing complaint about exploitative businesses that open stores in the inner cities and drain cash from the community without investing in the customer base. "That's how Air America came into our community, with disrespect and contempt," he said.
"We're asking every black New Yorker to turn off 'LIB! They need to restructure their on-air product," Law said to applause.
The fireworks even drew interest from the conservative Fox News Channel, which treats infighting on the left with the sugary glee of a three-year-old digging into birthday cake. A reporter and cameraman showed up and feigned sympathy to the cause, grabbing an angry sound bite, then scooting away before the evening was through.
The flap hints at the difficulties for the left as it gears up to defeat Bush. Though Air America is not owned by the Democratic Party, Law suggested it was, and didn't correct those in the audience who attacked the party. "The Democrats have greatly offended us with their insensitivity," he said. "We should use our vote like a weapon." If they choose to pick up that weapon when it's offered them in November, they may accidentally shoot themselves in the head.
shoupt@globeandmail.ca
I saw him on Conan, I think it was, doing some of the impressions he was going to do on the radio. He went on and on with his awkward impression, waiting for the audience to laugh. How pathetic. He finally thought of of joke to make the audience laugh, and he was able to stop the Strom Thurmond impression. But the audience silence for a long time was very revealing.
He has no talent and certainly no experience.
Even when he smiles he looks stuffy.
named his noon-to-3-p.m. flagship show The O'Franken Factor, "for one reason, and one reason only: to annoy and bait Bill O'Reilly." He explained that Air America's mission is to "take back the country" from the right wing
So if you "defeat" the other blow hard, O'Reilly, some how you'll "take back the country"? Since when did Bill O own the country? Little old Fox News, a basic cable channel, scares the libbies. The Big Three, all of Hollyweird, NPR, and almost all foreign journalists: All that back up is not enough when you're mentally pathetic.
When you name your show after someone else, you start out right from the get-go by not having an original brand identity. Which I suppose is fitting since he has no comedic identity.
So typical.
We've got 90% of them in our pockets no matter how much we take them for granted!
Hehe.
(DNC inside joke)
So the choice is between this tripe and Franken? Sort of like Stalin or Hitler.
5.56mm
"This week, to give the black population their due, we will have Ted Danson as a co-host. He banged a black girl you know. And us liberals love to screw our black friends!"
It's still not the Al Franken decade.
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