WBEN & the Presidential campaign

[Steven21]

A couple of thoughts:

There was an interesting mix of local talk programming addressing the Presidential race in the past day.

In one 24 hour period I heard Sandy Beach professing his love for John McCain and Sarah Palin....

Tom Bauerle was going on about how McCain is another 4 years of Bush (even though I think he loves Palin)....

And Ron Dobson spending most of last night's show pretending Palin should actually BE President! He offered up the most ridiculous defenses of her qualifications and did it with a straight face. (I know it was a put-on because of everything else I've heard him say about her before or since). This was one of the funniest shows I've heard him do. I wish I had it recorded.


All in all, pretty good and entertaining diversity on what is a very one-sided stance in mostly conservative talkradio.

Great job.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

WBEN gives local listeners a chance to opine on the presidential race, so kudos to them. And in a local emergency, such as the October 2006 storm, WBEN excels because of the size of its local news staff. But the presidential race is essentially a national story. So, in this case, WBEN takes a back seat to the public stations, WBFO and WNED-AM, thanks to their affiliations with NPR. There were frequent specials during the primary season and non-stop gavel-to-gavel coverage during the conventions, on top of unparalleled coverage on the daily NPR news magazines. I remember hearing on one morning during primary season when WBEN was talking to George Arthur about Barack Obama while NPR was interviewing Obama himself. With all due respect to the esteemed Mr. Arthur, I remember thinking whom would you rather hear? Some might see this post as self-serving. Yet, it's not the style of the two stations to go on-air and tout that their coverage is better. So, given the introduction of this thread, I just thought it would be good to give a shout out to NPR for doing what no one else on radio can.

 

[Steven21]

WBEN gives local listeners a chance to opine on the presidential race, so kudos to them. And in a local emergency, such as the October 2006 storm, WBEN excels because of the size of its local news staff. But the presidential race is essentially a national story. So, in this case, WBEN takes a back seat to the public stations, WBFO and WNED-AM, thanks to their affiliations with NPR. There were frequent specials during the primary season and non-stop gavel-to-gavel coverage during the conventions, on top of unparalleled coverage on the daily NPR news magazines. I remember hearing on one morning during primary season when WBEN was talking to George Arthur about Barack Obama while NPR was interviewing Obama himself. With all due respect to the esteemed Mr. Arthur, I remember thinking whom would you rather hear? Some might see this post as self-serving. Yet, it's not the style of the two stations to go on-air and tout that their coverage is better. So, given the introduction of this thread, I just thought it would be good to give a shout out to NPR for doing what no one else on radio can.

I don't know if a momentary interview with Obama on NPR trumps extensive catering to the local audience by way of news and conversation. Network TV can do what no one else can as well. Most people don't tune in the network to see what's really going on in their world.