afternoon and found something she said MOST illuminating. I was surprised to hear my suspicions confirmed. I was retired from all that, and it was just a guess on my part, regarding how broadcasting (and information brokering i.e.: news) had deteriorated and how there was a deliberate bias applied forcefully and directly to what was presented on talk shows. But she said it. She was making that same point, but from the view of an active front-line practitioner. She recounted a meeting she had with some syndicator that offered to pay her a freakin' fortune - if she'd switch up her schtick and do CON talk instead of liberal talk. She refused. And admitted to kissing goodbye a king's ransom of money, fame, multiple side platforms and endorsement deals, and a long, successful and glittering career at hundreds of stations from coast to coast, including the biggest stations in the biggest cities. None of that was offered to a liberal.
The whole construct, the whole industry, is set up to favor CONservative talk. And just as - when TV programmers luck into a hit, whether it's a Western, a crime drama, a doctor show, a romantic comedy, a variety show, or whatever, suddenly overnight you notice that the damn thing has been cloned and all of a sudden you have a dozen of them to choose from - on all the major networks and more. Radio is the same. The same mentality prevails. limbaugh lucked into being the first big voice to do it. And suddenly you had all the pretenders cropping up all over the dial. And by the time liberal talk radio was instituted, the CONS had already run the table. They'd bought up all the stations, gobbled up the Mom & Pop shops, and merged and acquired their way to a huge broadcasting monopoly. Used to be there were 600-and-some owners of radio stations across the country. Now, there are six. SIX. Conglomerates that overtook, over-ate - over gorged is more like it - and the non-music programming became mostly hate radio.
It sold, too. All that hate tapped into the most base parts of the human lizard brain. It just occurred to me as I've been writing this - I can't remember the last time I heard anybody say "...but you can't say that on the radio!" Because now, you can say ANYTHING. There used to be more of an adherence to truth in advertising. I remember when commercials dared not mention the name of a competitor. It just wasn't done. You might describe what the competitor did or offered, or otherwise allude to it, but it was anonymous. And then, something changed. Advertisers did indeed compare products by name. Dish soap, razor blades, you name it. And it doesn't matter what you name it. You can go ahead and say it. Sometimes you get hit back, and sometimes you have to pay for it as Brian Williams has. But it just amazes me how Pox Noise can get away with calling themselves a news network, and trumpeting on the air that they're "fair and balanced." Nobody questions it anymore. Only some fact-checking and not a lot. Lazy coverage and ignorant young correspondents who photograph well but have no life experience to leaven their observations and their witness-bearing, and they work cheap.
It's just really frustrating to have seen this devolution. REALLY frustrating. We used to have the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time provisions - that's all gone. No station really has to prove that they hold their broadcast license in the public interest and scrupulously serve the public interest anymore. License challenges are more often than not unsuccessful. There used to be restrictions and regulations concerning ownership - nobody could own more than three properties in any one market. And it usually worked out to owners having an AM, an FM, and a TV station. Any combination of the three. THAT'S all gone. That started in the waning days of reagan. And the owners or corporations had making money as their only interest. How you can thrive financially on that kind of mindset though - the CONservative mindset - how you can even think that way, much less push it on the radio all the time - man, I do not get that. Glad I was never active in the talk-radio arena. Only did it occasionally.
It's a shame that that CON mentality has been so lucrative. Its very success underlines the cliche - "if you're so smart why aren't you rich?" Heard that one? I suppose it dovetails beautifully with the whole misbegotten idea that God wants you to be rich, and if you are, that automatically testifies to your righteousness in the Eyes of God. You are blessed. I'm getting into the weeds here, I suppose, but it just hurts me that THAT kind of radio is what has gotten rich and influential. That there's been enough of a customer base to sustain it, and so handsomely, for so long. This asshole has been able to thrive and be a veritable king for 25 years. AND he's as rich as Midas. I'm a liberal. I think my liberal view is a lot better than the CON view. It's about helping people, using government as a force for good, about accomplishing things for the general welfare, the common, so that ALL can benefit, not just the privileged; and doing for those who cannot do for themselves. And I don't know why that hasn't been the Message-That-Sells commercially for the last 25 years. WHY does that not succeed? Are people really that easily manipulated? Are we really THAT greedy? THAT mercenary? That heartless, mean-spirited, and un-compassionate?
limbaugh has certainly given voice to all the ugly stuff. And made it sound entertaining and funny. And probably fortified the extreme CONS out there who are full of resentment but know deep-down that they're wrong and what they feel is anti-social or racist or un-Christian or selfish, but still wish those views were okay. Still wish it wasn't frowned upon and laughed at, but honored and taken seriously and reinforced. Saying it on the record - with such widespread exposure, from such a huge pulpit - in effect makes it okay. Makes it true. "You can't say that on TV if it isn't true." "They couldn't say that on the radio if it weren't true." "They couldn't print that if it wasn't true - they'd get sued." "Well, this guy and soon enough legions more like him WERE saying that shit on radio and TV and in print, so I guess maybe it's true." And more importantly, I think, "this guy's saying what I believe! So I guess I'M right, after all! And it's okay to say out loud in public!" So it becomes more respectable to have this shit out there on the public record, and I guess the audience that laps it up feels as though they can finally "come out of the closet" as it were. And besides, too few people actually do sue for libel or slander anymore. Just a guess, but this is what I suspect, anyway.
And you can beat that drum for only so long. Pretty soon it's like an observation my dad used to joke about: "Mercedes are like assholes. Everybody has one." Pretty soon it becomes overkill. And things change. If that limbaugh post is correct, he's actually noticing it. And the trend is veering away from him. Seems as though we're now in an era where he's becoming too problematic to carry on with much longer. Whether he really is out at WLS or not, he undoubtedly will be soon enough. His star is falling. The boycotts have not stopped - they've only grown and become more of a hassle for management and ownership to deal with. And they're drawing blood. AND as ol' rushie seems to be admitting in that post - times are changing. He's becoming passé. The new generations coming up and taking over DON'T THINK LIKE HE DOES. They don't see the world the way he does. They don't want the same things. Their priorities and concerns are way different from his. They don't agree with him as his panting crowds of now-aging ditto-heads have done - for 25 YEARS. SHEESH.
I couldn't be happier. I want him off the air. And even if WLS is denying it, as Nancy Reagan once warned then-White House Chief of Staff don regan (whom she did not like and was scheming, soon successfully, to oust him) "people are talking!" There's a drumbeat of this stuff happening to him now. For example, he got taken off AM talker powerhouse KFI in Los Angeles (has a HUGE signal, a clear channel station frequency-wise, and it blasts everywhere in the region, and at night sometimes you can hear it in other countries. He and a few other nauseating clones wound up on the station that used to be KTLK here in L.A., where Air America had started, and various permutations later, still had Stephanie Miller, and Randi Rhodes. Format and call letter change and all of a sudden it calls itself "The Patriot" and it's wall-to-wall hate radio and their numbers stay in the toilet. And it has a shitty signal and lousy coverage, very spotty all over the L.A. basin. Stuff like that is happening to him now. There's a drumbeat that's started. If there's a buzz about it, you just watch. Where there's smoke, there's very often fire.
OH CRAP! Sorry this is so long. Shit...
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