I enjoy Beck, too. Goes populist sometimes, but he is entertaining.
Posted on 03/19/2007 8:25:29 PM PDT by jazusamo
March 20, 2007
Talk shows began to fascinate me when I was a teenager, many years ago. The first was the old radio program, "The University of Chicago Roundtable." Over the years I also began to listen to "Meet the Press," and to watch David Susskind's television roundtable program, "Open End," and many others.
In more recent years, I can't bear to watch most of the talk shows on television, and on radio I listen only to Rush Limbaugh and a couple of others.
What has happened? Is it just my becoming ornery in my old age or have the programs themselves changed?
None of today's talk shows is like "Open End" or "The University of Chicago Roundtable," and "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert is not like "Meet the Press" with Lawrence Spivak or Bill Monroe.
"The University of Chicago Roundtable" was in fact a roundtable discussion among people with different views interacting and so was "Open End." That format is virtually unknown today.
There are superficial resemblances but the substance is very different. What is most lacking is genuine interaction.
Usually either the hosts or the guests have predetermined positions on issues, and they are not about to change them.
Regardless of what the issue is, do not expect either a liberal or a conservative to say: "You know, I never thought of it that way. I agree with you."
That could leave a lot of silence, unless somebody had another topic ready to go. More important, whoever went over to "the enemy" would lose his standing as a liberal or conservative.
The people around the University of Chicago roundtable had no such rigid ideological role to live up to, and neither did the guests around David Susskind on "Open End." They had different views in general but they didn't make their livings being dogmatic ideologues or political partisans.
The net result is that today the listener or viewer is not likely to get much interaction on issues. Instead, there are far more likely to be parallel and prepackaged talking points.
If either a guest or the host has a pointed question that cuts to the heart of the issue at hand, the first thing the person on the receiving end is likely to do is sidestep the question, saying something like "That's not the real issue" -- and go back to expounding his prepackaged talking points.
All that you learn from watching these kinds of "debates" is how clever some people are, how fast on their feet, and how big a supply of rhetoric they have.
Some guests are masters at monopolizing the time. And when the other side tries to get in a word edgewise, that brings an indignant "Let me finish!"
It takes a hard-nosed host to break up this kind of verbal logjam. But too many talk show hosts see no evil and hear no evil.
Radio talk shows are usually not that bad, mainly because most of the people who call in are not professional talkers and the host is, so he can usually keep them from running away.
Still, incoherent callers are seldom any great improvement over slick and slippery ones. You don't learn much from either.
What you learn from radio talk shows depends on how wide and how deep the knowledge of the talk show host is. Some of them -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and others -- are right on top of things.
The only problem is when they allow some hyped caller to just ramble on and on. That is when it is time to turn to some FM music station, preferably one playing soothing music.
The best part of a radio talk show is usually a monologue by a well-informed host. Rush Limbaugh often lets a caller's comment or question serve simply as a point of departure for giving an explanation of his own about some issue of the day.
Sometimes a well-informed and articulate guest like Condoleezza Rice or Alan Greenspan can provide some real insights to both the hosts and the audience. But these are the exceptions.
Usually the best roundtable programs on television are about sports. Probably that is because there are no predetermined positions or prepackaged partisan talking points.
---------
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
I just finished a biography of BF and I was thinking about who was his modern day equivalent. I decided it was Rush. Franklin's inventor role was actually fairly minor to his overall life's wok. He focused on science only after after he retired, owner of a financial empire built on communication, just like Rush.
Ben Franklin's first job was entertainment, just like Rush: his newspapers, his almanacs, and his social and political commentary that he began with the Silence Dogood letters to his brother's newspaper.
BF, and Rush, both made financial empires out of communication; both learned how to influence public opinion.
BF had a network of newspaper/print shops throughout the colonies that were very loyal to him as he had helped them get into business, through training and financing. Rush has a similiar network of talkshow hosts who openly admit they owe their shows to his influence.
Both learned how to influence public opinion; Franklin was a master at influencing people through his newspapers, anyonomous letters to the editor, and his wide social network. Both are masters at using the available media of the day.
Now, if Rush would get into diplomacy, like BF, that would make the anaology complete.
"TV prevents the blacks we discuss on this site from access to the general public."That used to puzzle me until I figured out it was a form of discrimination. The MSM wants to present blacks as radical, dangerous, and stupid.
You are exactly right. "If it bleeds, it leads" - journalism wants bad news. But you don't have to call it racial discrimination; after all, journalisms wants to present whites as racists even more than it wants to present blacks as dangerous.But the combination of the two is synergistic for journalism - it creates a bind where the white audience is supposed to fear blacks but also be afraid of being a racist. The message is, "You can't trust whites and you can't trust blacks - you can't trust yourself or anyone else. Except journalism - that you can depend on. Journalism and the people whom Big Journalism approves and calls 'liberals' or 'progressives,' that is."
The only thing 'round' about the Sunday morning talk-shows... is their resemblance to a DNC circle-jerk. Fawning admiration and backslapping for anyone with a (D)... a mini-inquisition for anyone with an (R).
I hear what you're saying. If Juan could learn to settle down and not take umbrage at what is said on the panels, especially by Brit, he would come across much better. The more he gets worked up the louder and higher his voice gets and he gets worked up too often.
BTTT
Agreed...Much of what passes for journalism today is not.
I agree except if you are John McCain and you are looking for acceptance and popularity.
BTTT!
I enjoy Beck, too. Goes populist sometimes, but he is entertaining.
Most blacks I speak with have not idea who Sowell, Walter Williams, or ALan Keyes are. There are a couple other good ones. Niger Olsen is good. A guy named Cain on Neal Cavuto's business block is good. There is a young guy out there I see from time to time. Very soft spoken.
Agreed. But the most amazing thing to me is his eternal optimism and cheerfulness. Especially after losing his hearing, which, for a talk-show host, would have been devastating to anybody else.
Methinks he might have more surprises in store for our liberal friends.
journalism wants to present whites as racistsIMHO Marxists persistently tout their Americans as unapologetic racists trope to try to associate capitalism with the mortal sin of slavery.
ccording to a socialist historian, the study of economics was invented by Adam Smith as recently as 1776 (with the publication of Wealth of Nations) because capitalism hadn't existed until the end of the feudal system.So one of the reasons that doesn't fly is that capitalism is only about as old as America - whereas the institution of slavery is ancient and was universal, until Christian - and capitalist Europe became revulsed at the institution of slavery and ended it, to the extent that it has been ended, worldwide. As much as anyone, by the British following Wilberforce.
There was the Joe Pyne Show. Remember Joe?
(I'm kidding, mostly.)
exactly! that was my point.
it's called "segmentation" in propaganda--you drop different ideas into different communications channels. for example, in soviet propaganda, doctors might receive information not available to the general public.
likewise, the media barons that control american tv deny most of american blacks the awareness of black conservatives.
I have a lot of respect for Medved, but I find it hard to listen to the deranged lefties that he has on his show. Medved wins his debates, and I think they are necessary debates, but the freak show gets old.
It is perversely fascinating to hear Hewitt deal with the dumber lefties. Like a good prosecutor, he keeps feeding them the rope they need to hang themselves. And I always enjoy listening to smart lefties like Thomas Barnett.
Rush is a miracle of nature. He is ridiculously good at what he does. I listen to him much less than I used to, just because I drive less than I used to.
Prager can be good. Hannity and Reagan seem like lightweights, somewhat entertaining but not really worth my time. Same with Glenn Reynolds.
As for the others you mention, I either have never listened to them, or never acquired the habit of listening to them.
Whoops, in the above post Glenn Reynolds should be Glenn Beck.
That's exactly why I don't like listening to Beck, despite his many vocal talents and often humorous style--- the guy is a smug populist (is there any other kind?) who acts as though, whenever he disagrees with conservatives or, for that matter, leftists, that they are simply selling out pragmatic good sense in the name of political hackery and ideological dogmatism.... His attack on Scooter Libby for "lying" is a good example. Bill O'Reilly does the same thing, but imo, he isn't as arrogant or thoughtless in doing so.
Anyway, I'm disappointed Sowell didn't mention Hume and the Fox All Stars... Thinktank with Wattenberg and some other PBS mildly rightwing shows are also quite good.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.