Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
You cut out the part showing how this relates to radio. I appreciate the contributions you make here, but I'm not playing this game anymore. Have fun.
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Has Talk Radio reached it's peak?
- Thread starter tothedj
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You cut out the part showing how this relates to radio. I appreciate the contributions you make here, but I'm not playing this game anymore. Have fun.
Yeah. At least it didn't in the past.Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
There are other things, outside the realm of politics and government that require pleasant speech habits.
Not all people subscribe to those things, though.
That is included in the Constitution, but not because we are a democracy.
They could have formed other kinds of perfect unions, which did or did not include freedom of speech.
But really, freedom of speech doesn't apply to the way we deal with each other, it's supposed to apply to the way we deal with government. The Constitution was put into place to restrict federal government powers to stop people from dissenting with the government, not with each other.
The Constitution was put into place to restrict federal governmental powers. Not really to address every future concern of how we relate to one another verbally. That's more of a local law responsibility, not a function of our form of federal government.
If we're using "democracy" as the reason for why we "tolerate" one another, then we should still have to use the source of that "democracy" to support any arguments for pleasantness, or dispel any arguments for pleasantness, as the case may be.
Fascinating discussion. My taste in talk radio does hem toward the right, but Pittsburgh doesn't have much if any left-wing talk radio available, with the exception of a couple part-time hosts on KDKA-1020, so my balance comes listening to NPR, for what it is worth. I believe in the old-fashioned idea of the public interest, convenience and necessity. I may prefer for how it entertains and may once in a while electrify me the conservative talk show, but I also like my radio able to offer public service to its community of license, in the form of local news, weather and other pertinent information. If a station can prove it is serving its listeners, it can weather (pardon the pun) any siege of its operations by those who don't care much for the filler between moments of such service. One does have to look long and hard to find such stations, but they are out there.
KeyTimes950 said:
What was considered public interest, convenience or necessity has shifted in the past 20 years. The Internet is much better at providing instant news. Those local stations that do have a live guy in studio still get their prep from the same places Hannity or Levin does. I'd think that local weather and some local news is enough to meet the FCC requirements at this point.
Does that mean that a fully satellite station with one part time guy is the ideal? Of course not! I've seen first hand how good a small market station can be, and how awful a mid market station with the same format can be. They're both serving the public interest, but one does it much better and as a result makes money doing it.
Jimme said:
Can one really use the words "NPR" and "interesting" in the same sentence?
When did Diane Rhems ever say anything nice about a Republican?
Different strokes for different folks. Many enjoy watching "reality TV", Hollywood gossip shows, and game shows, others enjoy watching documentaries on PBS, and cable. Same with radio. I enjoy, the more intelligent, stimulating programming of NPR to Rush/Hannity/Beck. It has nothing to do with politics. I used to enjoy watching William F. Buckley when he was on PBS. Rush/Hannity/Beck wouldn't make a "pimple on Buckley's back side" in terms of what they have to say in support of their point of view, yet they all were conservatives. I'd sure enjoy hearing or watching a conservative like the deceased Mr. Buckley. He had class and brought class to the GOP. All I can say is, To eash his/her own.
My local NPR station (WHYY-FM) doesn't carry Diane Rhems so I have no idea whether or not she's ever said a good thing about a Republican. My guess is, even if she hasn't she probably doesn't come across as hateful of the GOP in her comments on her show as Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh are in their respective shows towards the Democrats, yes I tuned in to elRushbo the other day and heard him call the Democrats, DemoRats. Mr. Buckley never stooped to this sort of crap. It's one thing to disagree with the other side, but it's a different thing when you paint those folks as evil incarnate, the anti-Christ, people who want to destroy America, etc, etc. Mr. Buckley, never, at least when I watched his show, said anything inflammatory as Rush/Hannity/Beck say every day on their shows.
KeithE4 said:
And older liberals despise him because of his role in selling the Viet Nam war.
...no, he wasn't. Firing Line was produced through WOR-TV/9 New York and aired on RKO General's TV stations and in commercial TV and radio syndication for its first five seasons, 1966 thru 1971. Like The McLaughlin Group and McLaughlin One on One today, it was offered to NET/NPR/PBS affiliates in those markets where commercial stations wouldn't bother with it. Firing Line didn't become a completely PBS/NPR program until 1971, when WOR-TV canceled it and SCETA picked it up...TheBigA said:
...I know PBS didn't exist until '70; that's why I specified "NET/NPR/PBS affiliates" in reference to Firing Line's five years of commercial origination. And, seeing that either Buckley or McLaughlin has constantly placed a conservative presence on most PBS affiliates since the beginning of the network, and it was also one of Tucker Carlson's stops after being canceled by CNN, isn't it time to lay that bogus "all liberal" argument to rest once and for all?...TheBigA said:
I won't dispute you about the "all liberal" argument. I also recall a conservative economic series produced by WQLN in Erie involving the late economist Milton Friedman.
I do object to something WQED in Pittsburgh does. When it runs a pledge-related cooking special on a Saturday, or some pledge special fed by PBS, it often will pre-empt McLaughlin Group even though it could put the show on either "Create" channel 13.2 where it runs on a delayed-basis The News Hour and some other evening PBS-fed news shows or Neighborhood Channel 13.3 which otherwise is a rehash of documentaries the station has produced for itself and the network.
I do object to something WQED in Pittsburgh does. When it runs a pledge-related cooking special on a Saturday, or some pledge special fed by PBS, it often will pre-empt McLaughlin Group even though it could put the show on either "Create" channel 13.2 where it runs on a delayed-basis The News Hour and some other evening PBS-fed news shows or Neighborhood Channel 13.3 which otherwise is a rehash of documentaries the station has produced for itself and the network.
I think it gravitated from a radio topic to a TV topic because of the references to Mr. Buckley. Bringing things back to radio, I do not feel my blood pressure rising when I hear an NPR documentary in the same way that I might experience it watching "Frontline" or one of the other PBS documentary shows. Some good stuff has been offered, for instance, on West Virginia Public Radio here in Pittsburgh on Wheeling and Morgantown stations. "All Things Considered" on WDUQ-90.5 is a nice alternative to some of the conversation on Sean Hannity's show carried by WPGB-104.7. However, my listening to any talk show has little to do with the callers. Callers may be why you have talk radio but callers rarely offer much light on any topic. It's the nature of the beast, as a caller hardly has the time to prepare that a talk show host is supposed to have. Having said all that, I appreciate NPR but clearly it is an alternative, ideologically when it comes to the more-widely-listened conservative hosts, as well as in tone, to much of what is on commercial radio.
TheManBehindTheMic said:
Because PBS is more open to conservative views, so when someone calls out NPR and PRI for not being as open, the focus shifts to PBS to provide examples of fairness.
NPR is far more balanced than it was 10 years ago. I remember during the Iraq War, NPR had excellent coverage with both Dem and GOP politicians being used in interviews with both being asked good intelligent questions. They also regularly interviewed the military leaders with the same quality of questions, no attitude, etc. The people at NPR may personally lean left, but they've come a long way in being far more balanced than what I hear on either Fox or MSNBC.
MikefromDelaware said:
You've worked in radio. You know exactly how easy it is to book a guest with a differing viewpoint and still maintain a bias. NPR maintains an illusion of fairness with their listeners because of their calm delivery. They don't have a guy like Ed Schultz foaming at the mouth and ranting about evil conservatives, so people just assume that they're unbiased.
NPR's far more fair and balanced than Fox ever is. I'd agree that all networks do have some sort of biased, some more than others. Fox and MSNBC are very biased, NPR less so. That's why I listen to both lib leaning and GOP leaning stations as the truth seems to be more in the middle. Neither side is correct 100% of the time or wrong 100% of the time.
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