THE COMING RISE OF LIBERAL TALK RADIO.

The New Republic ^ | 02.09.04 | Jason Zengerle

[GreatOne]

This is pretty funny stuff - they just don't get it. Liberal talk radio has (and will) fail because its ideas can't stand up to logical scrutiny. That's also why conservative talk radio has actually converted liberals to conservatism - the logic of our positions cannot be escaped when it is presented well, as Rush and others have.

I remember when here in the Twin Cities they had liberal Katherine Lamphire (sp?), who is being touted as co-host with Al Franken, on the conservative talk stationAM 1500. She couldn't alienate the show's base, so she had to take conservative callers, who just obliterated her attempt at liberal "logic", and was gone within a few months. The only way these guys can hope to succeed is to preach to the choir and not allow conserative callers on to challenge them.

The author is also a dickweed for taking the potshot at Rush: that he says what he does because of the entertainment value, not because of his own personal convictions. Does this guy not know about Rush's upbringing? Does he really think Rush (or anyone) could fake his personal beliefs for this long? Would Rush be this popular and influential with Republican politicians if he was faking it? What a loser.

And finally, the segment on the black urban radio station was depressing. When we wonder why urban blacks feel the way they do, it's not hard to understand when the talk radio they listen to repeatedly emphasizes how "whitey" is out to get them. I wish that there would/could be a conservative who could reach the black population. I don't know if it's because the right person hasn't come along, or the odds of cracking through the liberal morass is overwhelming. But there's no way they should be voting 80-90% DemoRat every election.

[Semper Paratus]

Liberal talk radio will last as long as Dean's Internet revolution in campaigning.

[martin_fierro]

Rhodes even tried trolling here to drum up interest in her show.

[Always Right]

The one misconception from the article is the country is split 50-50. That may be true of GOP vs. Dem, but it is not true of Liberal vs. Conservative. Most Dems outside of the northeast, run on conservative principles.

[finnman69]

Liberal talk radio will last as long as Dean's Internet revolution in campaigning.

LOL exactly.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Their signal must come in clearly in Cuba. Not up here...

[Paradox]

Rhodes is terrible, its really embarrassing for the liberals to have someone like her on. Every show someone more conservative than her calls up and makes her look really stupid.

Thats in the south florida market where I hear her. A much better radio liberal was the late Jack Cole. Although liberal, he hated Clinton, thats when I started listening to him. And even though his other opinions went against my own, I still listened to him because he at least tried to maintain a semblence of rationality.

[GSWarrior]

I'd love to hear a liberal talk radio host explain just exactly how Bush stole the election.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The problem is, talk radio can never effectively answer those frustrations and complaints, because, for a talk radio show to succeed, it must keep those frustrations and complaints alive. After all, without a simmering source of grievance, people won't listen. In this sense, then, talk radio is the quintessential "arena for angry minds" that Richard Hofstadter wrote about in his seminal 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style In American Politics." Although Hofstadter was writing a quarter-century before Limbaugh took his show national, the hallmarks of the paranoid style that Hofstadter listed-- "heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy" --read like a perfect description of talk radio's most relevant characteristics.

This was at the time of the peak of the 1960s liberals' attacks on Goldwater and the emerging modern conservative movement. Those attacks included the charge that conservative criticism of JFK caused Oswald to assassinate the President. "Racist!" "Bigot!" became the 1960s' liberals standard rebuttal to any disagreement with them. It was also the the time when liberals used the FCC "Fairness Doctrine" to shut down conservative talk radio. Yes, if you disagreed with them you were engaged in "heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy."

We cannot allow them (with the likely support of RINOs) to bring back a "fairness doctrine." After they fail "fairness" will be the plan.

[CSXT]

What a surprise- the studio is in the People's Republic of West Palm Beach.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Or until the rich donors stop footing the bill. As usual, liberals want SOMEONE ELSE to support their causes because there is no support for them in the community. NPR could go off the air today and no one would notice for a week.

[CIBvet]

I drove around Chicagoland last summer for a week, and caught the Black Eagle a couple of times.

I was truly shocked by the outright racism, hate-whitey rhetoric he pumps out constantly.

[Calvin Locke]

Rhodes has more Palm Beach listeners than even Rush Limbaugh...

And Palm Beach voters don't vote with care and vigilence, either, according to the same liberal "media".

How can one expect them to exercise greater thought when pressing a button in the car or home?

[Axenolith]

It's nice to see them burn financial resources though. A little more effective than filling the PETA postage paid begging envelope with shreddings and sending it back.

[Calvin Locke]

Rhodes even tried trolling here ...

My guess is that Drudge occasionally does a local show in Florida, and me, being on the ping list, tried to listen on
the internet to the posted stations, one of which was WJNO.

Anyway, I couldn't connect, but traipzed around her site. The live Drudge thread had comments about the WJNO stream such
as "Where's Drudge, and who is the heck is this woman..."

FWIW, I believe Rhodes is a friend of a friend/wife of the prosecutor in Limbaugh's case.

[Steve_Seattle]

"heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy" --read like a perfect description of talk radio's most relevant characteristics.

No, it sounds like a perfect description of the speeches of the Democratic presidential candidates.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Rhodes has more Palm Beach listeners than even Rush Limbaugh

OK, but how many listeners does she have nationally?

[WOSG]

But, in the past year, as efforts like Democracy Radio and Progress Media have gathered steam, the question of why liberals have been unable to match conservative talkers' success has become more serious, more focused--and more urgent. After all, if liberals can't figure out the cause of the talk radio imbalance, how can they ever hope to correct it?

The cause of the 'imbalance' is the complete and utter extreme LIBERAL BIAS in all other forms of media - ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/WashPost/NYTimes. The only way to have less imbalance in talk radio is to less imbalance elsewhere. More conservative views = higher ratings, because CONSERVAITVES ARE UNDERSERVED.

[dr_who_2]

Now I know why I haven't bothered to read anyting out of New Republic in years.

[Swordmaker]

The conservative dominance of talk radio, according to the Limbaugh theory, is a supply-side-driven phenomenon. "The country ideologically is pretty much split fifty-fifty," says Democracy Radio's Athans. "It's just an issue of supplying good and entertaining personalities who happen to be liberal."

While it may be true that the country is split 50-50, the Liberal listeners are busy feeling on the music stations, listening to canned emotions and prepackaged sexual innuendo. Conservatives, on the other hand, want to think and prefer listening to something with a little meat on its bones, ideas that challenge, facts that confirm or deny, and opinion that can spur their own thoughts.

Until the feeling liberals awaken to this audience dichotomy they will never understand why they will never have the "talk radio" presence that the thinking conservatives have.