Talk Radio
Talk Radio
There is a great article in Atlantic (April 2005) (subscription). (I'm still getting to the Rehnquist article).
It should be conceded that there is at least one real and refreshing journalistic advantage that bloggers, fringe-cable newsmen, and most talk-radio hosts have over the mainstream media: they are neither the friends nor the peers of the public officials they cover. [snip, quoting Eric Alterman, What Liberal Media?] [blockquote]No longer the working-class heroes of The Front Page/His Gal Friday lore, elite journalists in Washington and New York [and LA] are rock-solid members of the political and financial Establishment about whom they write. They dine at the same restaurants and take their vacations on the same Caribbean islands ... What's more, like the politicians, their jobs are not subject to export to China or Bangladesh.[/blockquote] [blockquote][Wallace] ... talk radio is very deliberately not part of this elite media. With the exception of Limbaugh and maybe Hannity, these hosts are not stars, or millionaires, or sophisticates. And a large part of their on-air persona is that they are of and for their audience--the Little Guy--and against corrupt, incompetent pols and their "spokesholes," against smooth-talking lawyers and PC whiners and idiot bureaucrats, against illegal aliens clogging our highways and emergency rooms, paroled sex offenders living among us, punitive vehicle taxes, and stupid, slef-righteous, agenda-laden laws against public smoking, SUV emissions, gun ownership, the right to watch the Nick Berg decapitation video over and over in slow motion, etc.[/blockquote] Some of the studies of the audience for angry talk radio suggests that a kind of fearful loner is a big part of it. Wallace also says liberals don't need alternate media--they're pretty happy with mainstream media, unlike the cranky people described above. Ziegler himself has had some scarifying disappointments in his career; he started out in a white collar or successful blue collar family, got to college (hence his articulateness), but ends up hustling for jobs that are likely to be short term, and moving a lot. He says political correctness (i.e. objections to things he has said on air) has made it impossible to have a lasting relationship, or start a family. Ziegler is probably more of a populist, working in a ruthlessly money-making business, than a conservative. But what is amazing, at least to liberals, is how this business has grown. Until Reagan ended the Fairness Doctrine, the doctrine was often used to get conservatives some token time on the air. Now they are at home in very popular media. I think this can open up reflection on the forturnes of the Democrats and the Republicans. The mainstream media grew with liberals, or people who aspired to kick off their roots and become liberals, in charge. They knew that much of the audience was not with the program--too bigoted, too religious, too skeptical of fashionable causes such as affirmative action and abortion--but they were confident that they were on the side of history, and the peasants, as it were, would more or less follow. This thinking seemed justified as fortunes were made dishing out media, in a somewhat condescending fashion, from superior folks in suits to the masses. For everyone, in the 50s and 60s, there seemed to be hope--hope that the economy would keep growing, that the need for violence could be eliminated, that parents could learn to accept their hippie children. But now the masses are angrier, or more prepared to show their anger. Maybe fear has become a more prevalent emotion than hope. Maybe this is, er, more like the common or natural human situation. In which case liberals, hoping to get back to the 60s, are truly out of it--and so are the media they dominate. Michael Barone is explaining how some of the core Democrats are actually "trust-fund liberals," who have inherited their wealth, and have virtually nothing in common with people either working or shopping at Walmart. (Via Instapundit). Democrats are stressing that the economy is tougher on a lot of working people than it used to be--security and benefits are less likely, there's a lot of forced moving, adjusting, anxiety, and fear--for one's family if any as well as oneself. Why don't Americans facing economic insecurity vote for unions and a social democratic government? I don't know--but they didn't really do that even in the Great Depression, when many people hoped they would move to either the radical left or the radical right. Somehow, today, with the temperature, as it were, just gradually getting warming around the frog, it seems the frog gets angry and becomes a bit more likely to vote Republican--even though Republicans might favour policies that make life even more insecure for a lot of talk radio listeners. |
Comments
Add Comment
Search This Site
Syndicate this blog site
Powered by BlogEasy
Free Blog Hosting