A moral and courageous stance

[johnbasalla]

Dennis Prager shared on his show that he doesn't want callers on who want to make jokes about certain things. He said he has instructed his call screeners to not accept those kind of calls. He was talking about this in the wake of the Anthony Wiener scandal. He specifically mentioned that he remembered not taking insult calls about Monica Lewinsky during the days following her sordid affairs with President Clinton. He said she still had some dignity, that I presume he meant deserved some protection. That was a good moral stance, consistent with his overall message, but it also was courageous seeing as how he's almost directly coming out saying that his show is not going to necessarily be very entertaining... and entertainment value is one of the important things that help make radio talk shows successful. It's courageous because he is on commercial radio stations. He's standing up for what is right, even though it may hurt 'the bottom line'.

 

[jas2525]

OK.

 

[listener-in]

Though I don't share Prager's political outlook, I agree that it's a moral stance. The question is, why should it need courage?

I look forward to the day when far-right talkers will find it in their hearts to reject the kind of hate or race-baiting talk that they have made their own (see under Boortz, Neal), and that they will not need courage to do so. I also look forward to station owners and managers taking some responsibility for what they allow on the air. This has nothing to do with the first amendment, since they have the absolute right to exercise editorial discretion.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Dennis Prager shared on his show that he doesn't want callers on who want to make jokes about certain things. He said he has instructed his call screeners to not accept those kind of calls. He was talking about this in the wake of the Anthony Wiener scandal. He specifically mentioned that he remembered not taking insult calls about Monica Lewinsky during the days following her sordid affairs with President Clinton. He said she still had some dignity, that I presume he meant deserved some protection. That was a good moral stance, consistent with his overall message, but it also was courageous seeing as how he's almost directly coming out saying that his show is not going to necessarily be very entertaining... and entertainment value is one of the important things that help make radio talk shows successful. It's courageous because he is on commercial radio stations. He's standing up for what is right, even though it may hurt 'the bottom line'.

Prager works for Salem, which is ostensibly a Christian radio network (even though two of their top hosts, Prager and Michael Medved, are Jewish). One would expect them to hold to a higher standard then on issues like this.

I listen to Salem shows fairly often and do not recall any of their hosts allowing off-color jokes about Rep. Weiner to make it on the air.

 

[johnbasalla]

It takes courage because the stance will likely guarantee lesser ratings, and with that, the show will yield less revenue and will be less attractive to other stations outside of Salem Communication group stations. It takes courage because Mr. Prager knows this. He has been in the business a long time.

 

[quadraphonic]

I don't know if not making Weiner jokes would make any difference in Prager's or Medved's ratings.
The people who are going to listen to them probably are already listening to them because they typically have pretty ethical and moral shows, and don't typically do juvenile humor.
Their listeners probably aren't looking for Weiner jokes, and aren't going to go looking for Weiner jokes, and so they aren't going to turn away from the shows because there's not any Weiner jokes.
Maybe some might tune in to avoid the Weiner jokes on all the other channels.

I will agree though, in today's radio world, anything people do to stay away from juvenile humor should be applauded, and almost considered a 'moral and courageous stance.' It's definitely a moral stance, because they're trying to keep the show out of the lowest-common-denominator gutter. And it takes courage, because they are definitely going against the typical grain of radio.

 

[jas2525]

You know what also, unfortunately, takes "courage" in most of today's talk radio arena?

Honesty. You can't believe that every wingnut talk host really believes Obama is going to do all the crazy and outlandish things these fearmongers have accused him of. COURAGE would be standing up to utter insanity that now passes for most talkradio.

FEW have that courage. Michael Smerconish comes to mind. Few others.

 

[FreddyE1977]

In general the programming on this network tends to be rather more serious, bordering on scholarly,
as opposed to the mainstream.

 

[johnbasalla]

In general the programming on this network tends to be rather more serious, bordering on scholarly,
as opposed to the mainstream.

Which is exactly why, on the public radio board, when a poster claimed that NPR was the only place to find "intelligent radio", I said that is simply not true, and used Dennis Prager's show as an example.