I listened to 7 hours of leftist talk-radio on Air America’s first day of programming (beginning at noon 3/31/04): “The O’Franken Factor” from noon-3pm (Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher) and the “Randi Rhodes Show” (3pm-7pm).
Here’s my review:
As a talk radio junkie -- I want to admit, right away -- my favorites are Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and occasionally ‘ole Rush.
But understand, now, I used to be a 24-hour-a-day leftist radio fan myself back in my radical days (1970-1994) when I was glued to Pacific Radio’s KPFK in LA.
I understand a radio that talks.
(Funny thing, I NEVER took to haughty NPR; even when a liberal I could only stand these stations for the music; KCRW in Santa Monica has the best contempo-pop anywhere.)
OK, let me give you the news right off: Franken is not funny. Worse, he’s boring.
He had guests, but never challenged them; didn’t push for stories or ideas, instead, fished around for responses he'd agree with. His main guest was Michael Moore – who read letters from American soldiers in Iraq who disparaged Bush and hated the military project (no names on these letters, of course). The two talked about how President Bush was a military “deserter” years ago. This kind of talk is provocative?
Randi Rhodes was better: a sassy, punk-tinged, street-wise, ranter. She knows how to sling a sentence around. I imagine her spitting on the studio floor. She can rap against your most cherished belief…and make you take it. She lived up to her billing as a Brooklyn toughie with an “attitude” (though a caller told her she actually had a Queens accent – and she admitted it on air…but it didn’t matter, she recovered, likable anyway).
But all in all: there’s something missing in these programs: they contain no ideas; no descriptions; no diversions into cultural territory; no discussions with content.
Even Rush Limbaugh – one of the more blustery and “in your face” talkers – does more than just put down his opposition; he also describes conservative thinking in comparison with liberal thinking. He engages his audience with arguments against the liberal point of view, regardless of how biased these arguments are. Dennis Prager is the best at this, by the way – being, perhaps, America’s only true philosopher of the airwaves.
Despite the attacks on their liberal enemies (Ted Kennedy, Senator Daschle, President Clinton, etc.) -- the right-wing talkers, in various ways, attempt (between the comedy and satire) to take on their real nemesis: the mainstream media.
Since right-wingers are addressing an audience that, like everyone in the country, is already saturated in the glow of the national media (ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, Time, Newsweek, etc.) – a kind of background given – these talkers have an opponent against which they must explain themselves.
Whether their discussions are serious or ridiculous, they have to describe a passage-way, a channel AROUND the monolith of the general liberal media. They are guides through the political landscape. This is what all of the noise is about.
Air America attempts none of this. It goes straight for the acidic put-down. It isn’t afraid of sloshing through flamboyant radical conspiracies; for example, Rhodes said: President Bush’s family supported Nazis in the past; Franken detailed the Bush family “connections” with the bin-Laden family of Saudi Arabia.
In all of this – no attempt to give evidence, to bring up ideology, to describe the values. Just fancy dueling.
Will this work?
Stay tuned.