Posted on 12/12/2002 1:14:30 PM PST by mountaineer
It's been almost 20 years since the last time I heard Jeff Christie on a Pittsburgh Top 40 radio station.
He was one of KQV-AM's "Top Pop 5," which is how the station referred to its first-string disc jockeys. At the time, KQV was losing ratings to competitor 13Q, so KQV brought in a new program director named Joey Reynolds.
Commercial radio stations, then as now, were tightly formatted. In a bid to shake things up, Reynolds tossed the format notebook into the Dumpster.
The DJs responded in a number of ways to their new-found freedom. They began spinning a more innovative playlist of songs. Some would make fun of the station's commercials while they were airing.
Jeff Christie started spouting off between records, describing the ways in which he believed the world was going to pieces. Since his views didn't jibe much with mine, I would give him about 30 seconds to play another record, then change the channel.
The unformatted approach ended KQV's career as a Top 40 station, but not Jeff Christie's. Today he's heard everywhere under his real name, Rush Limbaugh.
Rush's schtick today remains pretty much as it was in those days, when he was winging it between "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace and "How Do You Do" by Mouth and MacNeil. He didn't know what he was talking about half the time then - and he still doesn't.
One could indulge him a bit in the Christie days, when it was just him, the seat of his pants and a microphone. But nowadays he's got this whole Excellence In Broadcasting operation, with a host of aides screening his calls and putting up his website.
Somewhere among all those employees must be someone who can spare a moment for fact-checking. Even first-graders know how to search Google.com.
This might have prevented him from once declaring that there are more trees in America today than there were in 1787... that the occasional eruption of a single volcano causes more permanent damage to the ozone layer than the constant assault of industrial pollution.... or that the New York Times buried a news story about positive Republican prospects in the just-passed election to serve some supposed liberal bias. This would have come as a surprise to anyone who had read that day's Times and saw the "buried" story in the lead position of page 1.
Accuracy isn't a big part of the Limbaugh ethos.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, name-calling is- unless you can show me a scholarly paper with this attribution: "Daschle, Sen. Thomas, see also Satan, Hanoi Tom." Those are actual names the non-name-calling Limbaugh called Daschle.
Or explain what wrong-headed governmental policy was criticized when, in talking about presidential pets, he described a 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton as "the White House dog." I once listened to Rush berate another 12-year-old, a Kansas girl who won a statewide academic contest with an essay about protecting the environment.
This is what Limbaugh and his defenders claim is "just entertainment." I must have skipped literature class the day they explained the humor in an adult's rantings about 12-year-old girls' appearance and intellect. Or how a senator who actually fought honorably for Limbaugh's country in Vietnam could logically be called a traitor in that very conflict.
The announcer himself was classified 4-F with an infected cyst on his rear end when that war was going on, by the way.
Yes, I know that Rush is popular. So is "Jackass The Movie." And the two phenomena are not dissimilar, except that fans of the movie aren't using its escapades to form opinions about federal legislation or foreign policy.
Ultimately, what Rush's listeners get out of his show is reinforcement of their already-held beliefs. Three hours a day of some big important guy telling you you're right about everything is seductive, after all.
But democracy, not to mention society, doesn't work well when everybody has a closed mind. In that respect, Rush doesn't just set the lock; he throws away the key. Ask any caller who tried to get past his call-screeners to tell him when something he said was wrong.
The current crop of Rush imitators on AM radio and cable TV's screaming-head shows aren't worried about being factually correct, however. All they care about is being heard over everybody else.
Maybe they should all have a "Jackass"-style disclaimer put on their shows: "Applying the views heard on this show to real life may be injurious to the body politic."
Here's your disclaimer Francis..."Dumbasses like Francis Volpe who think they are qualified to form everyone elses opinion for them can crawl back under the same rock as the "Hollyweird 100"...We don't want your gasbag opinions and if you get in our faces with them, you may well need tape to hold your glasses up because your nose is gonna get flattened!
Is THAT injurious enough for you, Francis?
Francy boy heard that at his last 'seminar caller' meeting.
(Pssst! Rush is a lot skinnier than this feller.)
damn, you stole my movie quote...
Poor Francis must have gotten a "D" in Civics class. Not a democracy, Francis!!
Enter Francis Volpe.
Apparently he has just discovered Rush Limbaugh. Or at least discovered the he was becoming popular. The trouble is, Rush has been the number one rated talk host in the country for over a decade now. Everyone already knows about Rush Limbaugh. Heck, most of us even know about the "shocking" revelations Volpe seems to think he is "breaking" in his article.
There is no longer any need to wonder who plays the office idiot role at the Carlisle Sentinel.
that the occasional eruption of a single volcano causes more permanent damage to the ozone layer than the constant assault of industrial pollution....
or that the New York Times buried a news story about positive Republican prospects in the just-passed election to serve some supposed liberal bias.
hmmmm. All these statements are true.
Even the envirowhackos do not dispute this one. They say the reforestation of America is the result of all the CO2 in the air and that we have reached the upper level of how much forest the country can have so NOW we will get the high CO2 rates they have been predicting all along.
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