Is there any way to discuss the philosophy of government without partisanship?

[mattthetalker]

Hello everyone-- I just discovered this place, and wish I had found it years ago-- I love it, and have spent several hours over the last few days poring over the place-- what a great community

I have limited radio experience-- small-time talk, mostly call-in, couple hours a week for about three years.

I'm close to a new opportunity to get on-air after over a year away, and thought I'd get your opinion, since your experience eclipses mine.

The question: Is there any way to shape an interest in political/government/cultural/economic discussion with an audience without playing the "evil socialist left" vs. "bloodless corporatist right" game?

There is so much to teach, and so much to learn-- but it seems like a constant struggle to keep the mindless partisan blame-game from gushing up like a backed-up toilet. I hope that isn't inappropriate to say.

My desire is to keep partisanship away as much as I can-- honestly, I'm of the belief that the political parties are functionally identical, and arguing one over the other is like betting on a horse race in a burning stadium... I want to discuss issues, and reality-based approaches to local and broader problems... but can it be done with a public so well-trained to see the world as left vs. right?

 

[SeanMGilbow]

In a word...no.

If we are talking about when I was briefly in this business, which was before I even knew of the existence of Rush Limbaugh, I would certainly answer differently. That was when the Fairness Doctrine was being enforced and stations had public service requirements that were stricter than they are now.

If you are working for a noncommercial entity, or this station is in Canada, you would have a chance of success with your concept. But if we are talking about a commercial entity, the audiences are attracted to stations where the hosts lean one direction or the other. At least in the case of conservatives, they have been conditioned over the past two decades toward a certain type of talk.

Keep in mind, Matt, I also had high ideals when I graduated from college and got my first radio news job. But if I knew then what was going to happen with the state of the industry, I would have obtained an accounting degree instead.

Consider this, Matt. The Radio Television Digital News Association last year reported the median salary for a radio news director was around $33,000. I currently make 20 percent more than that in a customer service position with a government agency, a position that does not require a college degree. And that's with taking two weeks of unpaid leave due to budget cuts.

I wish you the best with the concept, Matt. It would be the type of show I would do if given the opportunity 20+ years ago. But I fear the days of such a show being popular are long gone.

 

[mattthetalker]

Sobering advice-- and I can't disagree... it's just a shame.

I don't want a career in radio-- for the monetary reasons, sure...and honestly, because of what you've pointed out yourself-- there's so little opportunity to do genuine good work anymore. It seems to be all about frothing up artificially-maintained divisions between people and complaining about pointless things for emotional relief.

I absolutely understand the financial concerns and the single-minded need to gain/keep advertisers--especially in this economy, with the added stress and decline of radio itself. I just want to find a way to do something useful in the few hours I'll have with my community...

 

[Silkie]

Pretty straightforward with no partisanship right here:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

 

[mattthetalker]

I like the way you think, Silkie

 

[Silkie]

 

[SeanMGilbow]

Sobering advice-- and I can't disagree... it's just a shame.

I don't want a career in radio-- for the monetary reasons, sure...and honestly, because of what you've pointed out yourself-- there's so little opportunity to do genuine good work anymore. It seems to be all about frothing up artificially-maintained divisions between people and complaining about pointless things for emotional relief.

I absolutely understand the financial concerns and the single-minded need to gain/keep advertisers--especially in this economy, with the added stress and decline of radio itself. I just want to find a way to do something useful in the few hours I'll have with my community...

I agree, Matt. It is indeed a shame.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I did a local talk show a few years back, and took an approach where I didn't bash my callers opinions. I'd ask questions, but worked hard at making it a positive attitude rather than hostile and playing the blame game. I might disagree with their point of view, but didn't get disagreeable about it or call them names like "you must be a paid liberal operative" or "I see that you got your GOP official talking points this morning". I tried to look at both sides of an issue. I would offer my opinion as to where I stood (being an registered Independent I wasn't beholden to any party and made sure my audience knew that). One day I'd support the Dems, the next day the GOP. It purely depended on the issue being discussed. I didn't call the other party evil incarnate, or say that Bush (he was President then) was the anti-Christ, or call the Dems evil libs, or call the conservatives, stiffed neck conservatives. I used to get many calls from people who really liked that approach. I found that my show had a good amount of female callers as they felt comfortable calling, knowing that I'd listen to them and not talk over them or get verbally abusive with them. What I've found is that the host sets the tone for the show. If you are an angry host, or a host with an agenda, or a host with a me first attitude, or only my opinion is of any real value, etc, it will show up in your show.

I was only a weekend part timer. So I'm sure the real professionals will tell you that this sort of format won't work. My show did beat out our competitor during that time slot on the weekend, so someone was listening. I eventually stepped down from doing the show, the prep time (Rush/Hannity, etc, have staffs for much of this, the local host does it it his/her self), was unpaid and it was a lot of work off air getting read up, thinking about my position on an issue, etc. Being prepared sot that I could talk the entire time, IF I didn't get any calls. Thankfully, that never happened. Hopefully this info might be useful for you. Good luck.

 

[OldNumber7]

Maybe I've just grown more cynical as I have grown older, or maybe we just live in more cynical times. Either way, it's difficult for me to believe it's possible to host a successful issues-type talk show these days without 1) a lot of information about what's going on and 2) a keen sense that things are NEVER what they seem.
You have to be a very informed cynic to stay ahead of many of your listeners. The core talk radio audience is far better informed and more cynical than ever before (thanks to cable news and the Internet), and you will lose them if you are not a step ahead of them. That means you have to have informed opinions, and a lot of healthy skepticism. Given that, I think being a fierce partisan almost comes with the territory.
In the old days (when we still had a Fairness Doctrine and Community Ascertainment), we did boring public affairs discussion shows with local politicians telling us about all the wonderful stuff they were doing and we seldom got so bold as to challenge them or even knew enough to ask tough questions. These shows were relegated to 5 am on Sunday morning for a reason.
That said, there's no reason you can't have a pleasant persona on the air. But if you are not informed and insightful, you won't last long.

 

[Talk_Dude]

The question: Is there any way to shape an interest in political/government/cultural/economic discussion with an audience without playing the "evil socialist left" vs. "bloodless corporatist right" game?

Ask yourself the same question from a totally different perspective. Would it be possible to program a successful music format station with nothing but "good" music regardless of genre and no specialization like only country, or only rock, or only R&B? Radio pros who program music stations learned a long time ago that you have to specialize in a particular genre of music. Radio pros in the talk format learned that the same thing applies to talk stations. You could no more succeed with a blend of conservative and liberal content on a single show than you could succeed with a mix of country and hip-hop in the same hour. And if you could find performers who'd make recordings of country/hip-hop fusion songs, it would go over even worse.

Remember, for every listener who genuinely wants to hear input from both sides of the political spectrum and who listens with an open mind, there are hundreds of listeners who simply want to have their existing ideas and opinions validated. People listen to music because it makes them feel good. Even people who listen to the blues do so because they like the blues. People who listen to talk do so because hearing someone else say the things they already believe makes them feel good.

 

[Prais]

Absolutely correct.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Remember, for every listener who genuinely wants to hear input from both sides of the political spectrum and who listens with an open mind, there are hundreds of listeners who simply want to have their existing ideas and opinions validated. People listen to music because it makes them feel good. Even people who listen to the blues do so because they like the blues. People who listen to talk do so because hearing someone else say the things they already believe makes them feel good.

Play the bumper music. Intro the show. Open up the phone lines. Those who choose to call will cause you to accept the previous paragraph as gospel.

Two experiences in life cause me to to review your paragraph, raise an eyebrow and ask: "Are you SURE about that? Can we document the accuracy of your observation?"

In finishing up my college work, I was down to electives to reach the magic number of hours. I took a LOT of psychology courses including the one where you study how psychologists "prove" (or disprove" a point. The methodology. Keeping your sample groups honest. I am confident that some people involved in broadcasting, public discussion and politics have done some studies and they may not want to share the results with the public. How many people really want only discussion that reinforces what they already have decided to believe, and how many people or curious and would like to learn something today they didn't know yesterday. And is that last group large enough that some enterprising broadcaster could develop a format to capture their attention profitably. I fear we are all just voicing prejudices more than facts in this discussion. Wow, come to think of it, that IS what talk radio does, isn't it!

Second experience. Being dumb, naive, sheltered and "countrified" I was amazed to run into one of my college classmates when I was about 30. What are YOU doing here we asked each other. We were about four states from home. He was being put through an MBA program at Indiana University. A what program? "Whut's that?" as we would have said back home. He gave me the elevator speech on "Operations Research" and "Business Process Improvement". 30 years later I joined the Business Process Improvement team at the company where I was working. We were given a crash course in "Toyota Lean Management" and turned loose on the company like a pack of dogs. I was amazed at the case studies on people to went out to prove what they assumed to be true vs people who set up studies where things they assumed not to be true could also be fairly tested.

Detroit was confident they were world class experts on what the public wanted and how to test for quality. (reminds me of all of us to participate in Radio-Info discussions and we are confident we KNOW what the audience wants and what will work in radio.)

Toyota, Honda and Nissan came along and "ate Detroit's lunch".... leaving us to all gladly share our personal knowledge on why that happened. (You know the arguments: It was the unions. It was government regulations. Those people from Japan are not nearly as capable as American companies.... are they?)

I have spent a lifetime of being in meetings, conducting meetings, participating in meetings. (Including church-based Bible study and other topics.) In the last ten years the American public has developed a new speech pattern, a new set of values on how we deal with each other in group settings, a new set of standards on what is civility and courtesy. In these gatherings there are a few, maybe 10%, who stand up and when their mouth opens, we see the "talk radio sheeple robots" at work.

That leaves us with the question I would like to see studied under academic conditions: How many of the other 90% feel the same way, and how many could you recruit to forcibly eject the Rush-Hannity-Boortz-Beck robots out of the room?

 

[DonTheTrucker]

I still can't get over why people think partisanship is a bad thing, or that it's new.

When everyone in Washington (and the media that covers them) agrees on something, you can bet your last dollar that the American people are getting screwed.

If you want to do a show that no one listens to, you can do "non-partisan" radio. If you want to make a niche for yourself, take a side and go with that. No one says you have to yell at callers or call the other guys bad names. There are quite a few hosts that don't do that and do alright for themselves. They're not the biggest, but they're not starving either.

I'd love to have seen Internet message boards back in the days of Aaron Burr. I'm sure they would have been saying the same things they are now. It's always the end of the world, and things have never been worse.

 

[Silkie]

A judge in Baltimore, now long retired, once said that the first person to file a motion for settlement by duel would receive a signed order granting the request.

 

[Talk_Dude]

Remember, for every listener who genuinely wants to hear input from both sides of the political spectrum and who listens with an open mind, there are hundreds of listeners who simply want to have their existing ideas and opinions validated. People listen to music because it makes them feel good. Even people who listen to the blues do so because they like the blues. People who listen to talk do so because hearing someone else say the things they already believe makes them feel good.

Play the bumper music. Intro the show. Open up the phone lines. Those who choose to call will cause you to accept the previous paragraph as gospel.

Two experiences in life cause me to to review your paragraph, raise an eyebrow and ask: "Are you SURE about that? Can we document the accuracy of your observation?"
...

I've been through similar tests over the course of my career. All I can say by way of response is that as long as I'm offering free advice, I'm only offering a few paragraphs that roughly summarize what I'm getting at. If I was in the business of doing consulting work for big bucks, then I'd worry about backing my opinions up.

On the simplest level, all I can suggest is look at how many talk shows succeed by picking one audience segment to pander to and compare that to how many ratings winners there are who are "balanced" and/or "middle-of-the-road".

I realize that there are times when conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong. Conventional wisdom in radio used to be that Top 40 stations with music from a variety of genres had the best chance of success, until it was proved that separating the genres into "formats" worked better.

And, I'll gladly concede that times change. Maybe when the Gen X'ers are in their 50's, tastes in talk shows might change. I suspect that's why the Japanese car companies beat the Detroit car companies. It wasn't that Detroit was wrong originally, it's that the market changed out from under them. That could also happen in radio again, as it has happened before.

But going to what I said as a specific piece of advice for someone asking a question about what would work in 2010, I don't think the times have changed enough to risk any significant amount of capital on conventional wisdom having died of old age just yet. Remind me of all this in 2020, things will no doubt be much different then.

I still can't get over why people think partisanship is a bad thing, or that it's new.

Just look at the circulation wars between Pulitzer and Hearst around the turn of the last century.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

An interesting discussion.

I think what some of you are missing is there are listeners, who do not listen to the "Limbaugh/Hannity" type talk radio. They like talk radio, but not the slash and cut type or the excessively political type. Indeed why can't a talk show discuss the problems of the city, state, nation, and the world without bashing the people who don't see the world the same as you? That doesn't mean you can't disagree with them, but why the name calling, the venom, calling the other leader (Gingrich, Bush, Pelosi, Reed, or Obama, etc) the anti-Christ or other such inflammatory names? Why go on the air and say, so and so from this political party is trying to destroy the nation. I'm not a fan of either Bush Jr, or Obama. Both have their faults, as we all do. I also do not believe that either man wants to destroy America. They just have different solutions for the country's problems. So point out the differences and what you believe will be the outcome of following Bush's plan or Obama's plan, but stuff the rest. That sort of format can and does work, everyday.....................on NPR. Granted the hosts do lean left, but I've never heard any NPR host bash a GOP candidate personally or bash the party. They may disagree with the GOP's platform, and will discuss that, but they never stoop to the lows that so many commercial talkers be they Lib talkers or Conservative talkers do each day on their respective shows.

NPR has great numbers. In some markets, they even pull in higher ratings than their commercial talk station competitors. So someone IS listening to non-confrontational talk and in very significant numbers. William F. Buckley offered that same sort of intelligent non-confrontational conservative talk on his PBS show. So, I'm waiting for a conservative radio talk host to offer his spin minus the bashing of the left, same for the commercial lib talk hosts.

If the idea is to "convert" libs to the GOP way of thinking, bashing them personally and calling their leaders the anti-Christ probably isn't going to sway many to cross the divide from Liberal land to GOP land. If the idea is to only make fellow conservatives scared of the "evil libs" so they'd never be tempted to even think about, with an open mind, what the other side is saying so they can make an intelligent decision for themselves about the state of the nation, policy, maybe some sort of compromise to meet in the middle, etc, then they are doing the right thing, in my opinion, which truly is a disservice to our nation. But that is their right as Americans to do so. Our nation did give all of us that freedom. However, just because all things are permissible doesn't make it beneficial or constructive. (see 1 Corinthians 10:23).

 

[mattthetalker]

So many engaging points-- so much wisdom.

I think that it's natural for people to factionalise-- it's human nature to cleave to those similar to you, and to distance yourself from those that aren't. It's a survival instinct.
But I believe there is a way to frame the argument to exclude parties. Government action and decision takes place regardless of whether the politicians wear a (D) or an (R) in front of their name.

Politics is the game of exploiting those differences and benefiting from them in one way or another. Careers are made by this skill.

I started in talk radio skirting the line of partisan bickering-- it's easy to do when your callers seem to instinctively condemn "the other" as sub-human enemies... but it always left a bad taste in my mouth. I listened to Hannity, Boortz, Rush, etc... and back then, I felt like they made a lot of sense to me.

As time went on, and I continued my off-air studies of these topics, ever deeper and broader, I listened to the same, empty vitriol against "the other"-- it was becoming more and more clear to me that "your" side does the exact same things that "the other" does-- and as I played with these facts on-air, occasionally nudging the callers with this observation, I watched as they would blank out, or change the topic, or fall back on some blanket condemnation of the "bad" team being worse.

I realized that many of these folks had literally never thought about the similarities between parties...and as they were revealed, began to modify their venom to encompass "politicians" instead of "democrats/liberals"-- though they still held special contempt for the left.

There are concrete, undeniable facts about "what" the government does. I strongly believe that the end-results--the on-the-ground right-now realities-- are what we should all be discussing. Then we'd be comparing sales-pitch to product.

Instead, our discussions are comparing one ever-changing sales-pitch (D) to another ever-changing sales-pitch (R).
Meanwhile, the foundation of our culture and economy is decays underneath us. Slowly, inexorably, it is falling apart... and while we smell the rot, and complain to the rafters, we're too busy looking up at the clouds where our saviors are spouting their promises to see the simple truth before us and clean up the mess.

I reject the focus on the partisanship that seems to be the end-point of modern talk.
Everybody argues about why their side is more moral, and why the underlying principles their chosen factions claim to represent are superior to their enemies...but the fact is that they are both intimately responsible for the problems we all face, and until we choose to break free from the left-vs-right dynamic, we're never going to ask simple, answerable questions like "are we spending more than we are earning?", or "was this war right or wrong, and what do we do about it today?", and "how do we feel about our culture, and our place in the world?" or " What does the rest of the world think about us, and why? Are they justified, and if not, why not" I want my show to be a big mirror whos only function is to require each of us to critically examine "why" we feel the way we do. I'm not about to slam anyone, or any particular ideology-- but I'll absolutely point out the facts and compare them to the propaganda.

I believe this is a worthwhile attempt--I can't help but believe that good people find themselves grateful for new-found perspective-- so long as it is constructively delivered... even if it serves only to solidify what they already believe.

I can't help but believe that people do care about the true causes and effects of our world, and that the more they know about the world around them, the better. I want to believe that the petty team-sport factionalism can be breached with a good, entertaining discussion that focuses on causes and effects-- leaving all the generic labeling out of the process.

I want to sign off every day feeling like I've brought something new to my audience-- that i've stretched them--exposed some holes, and maybe even re-enforced some deeply-held beliefs.

Am I crazy?

 

[gr8oldies]

Re: Is there any way to discuss the philosophy of government without partisanshi

30 years ago you had the people in Congress who would disagree on the floor and then go play golf. Now we not only disagree, we despise each other and think the worst of each other (anyone who disagrees with the war on terror is an anti-American; anyone who disagrees with Obama on anything is a racist; anyone who does not wholeheartedly agree that a judge should change the definition of marriage for everyone is a hateful bigoted homophobe; anyone who disagreed with the Patriot Act is a naive child). Many want all opposition silenced, and openly want vile things to happen to opponents. It's too late to turn back now. Let's admit we all hate each other. Long way of saying "lotsa luck" on a non-partisan show

 

[DonTheTrucker]

Just look at the circulation wars between Pulitzer and Hearst around the turn of the last century.

Interesting you should bring that up since Pulitzer's invention of "impartial" media was started as a marketing gimmick.

 

[SeanMGilbow]

I believe gr8oldies just answered your question with a resounding yes.

MikeFromDelaware reiterated the point I made in my original posting. If you were doing this on a noncommercial entity such as NPR, this would work. Most of the responses like Mike's and GoatRodeoCowboy's are definitely on the mark.

I wish I could give you more encouragement, but a colleague told me after I was let go from my last on-air job that it was the best thing to ever happen to me. Little did I know how right she was.

That said, I believe you should hear from Holland Cooke and get his insights on this. And if he doesn't post here, call him on his cell. This is one voice of experience you need to listen to.