Depressing day on the radio

[HamdenRice]

Yesterday evening, I was driving and listening to the radio, flipping back and forth between WABC, AAR and NPR, and had this little epiphany about the polarization of the radio and how sad it was.

Here in NY, WABC (the Disney-Cap Cities affiliate) is the vehicle for all the RW nutcases -- Rush, Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Monical Crowley and a really nasty piece of local work, Mark Levin. I didn't even know what this RW radio phenomena was till about a year ago, when I tuned in one evening to Monica Crowley. I had heard about Rush Limbaugh, but had never actually listened to him and began listening in. It was just so amazing to me at that time, that radio could be so obviously partisan. Crowly was going on like some demented cheerleader about how great "this president" was.

So now we have AAR. I was flipping between Ingraham and either Randi Rhodes or Jeanene Garafolo. Randi (or was it Jeanene?) was ranting about how horrible Bush is and Ingraham was ranting about Kerry. I tuned to NPR, and my ears immediately glazed over because they were talking about something incredibly boring, technical and non-partisan issue, like a slight dip in the continental shelf flounder population.

And I just had this terrible feeling that it "had come to this." That it was impossible, really, for people to have normal, engaged political conversations and debates anymore.

And NPR/WNYC, trying to not get into hyper partisanship, has retreated into a snooze of irrelevant technical data, incredibly middle brow, unstimulating culture ("Debby Smith premiered her new album of folk rock influenced women's empowerment songs at Milwaukee's Birkenstock cafe ...") or whimsy.

I like AAR, but sometimes I feel guilty for listening to it. I like Morning Sedition the most, but the rest just seems to be uninformed opinion -- our version of RW radio.

Do any of you ever feel this way?