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Radio
Who do you think Charlie Gibson, newsreader over at ABC, voted for in the last presidential election? Tell the truth, now: be honest. How about Paul Krugman and most of the other reporters over the the New York Times? Katie Couric from CBS? Brian Williams from NBC? Lou Dobbs from CNN? Chris Matthews from MSNBC? Those flat-voiced folks over at NPR who host Morning Edition and their other programs? All those reporters from the Washington Post?
If polls are of any use—always a good question to ask—we know that about 90% of media people vote for Democrat party candidates. Be safe and subtract 10%, even 20%, from that number, and then add to it the evidence contained in the news broadcasts and written reports from the above-named outlets, and we conclude that the majority of media skews left. Which is no surprise to anybody.
Conservatives, having no other outlet, and television being too expensive, turned to radio. Eventually, conservatives got Fox News on cable and one or two newspapers, but only long after radio had become dominant.
Advertising pays for news. Watch a half-hour broadcast news show and build your desire for a new car. Watch one on cable and soon you will crave storm windows. Crease open a big-city paper and lust after polished rocks strung together on a string. Thus, a typical lefty person, setting down his Times and switching on the tube to soak up the sedate offerings of Keith Olbermann, will find nothing unusual when it’s time for “these important messages”.
But suppose our open-minded lefty says to himself, “I wonder what this Mark Levin is all about? I might learn something by exposing myself to a different viewpoint.” So he tunes in the radio and hears the appalling “Kars for Kids” suicide-inducing jingle begging him to “donate” his car, then he hears a man pretending he is the radio host interrupting the show to bring you “a public service announcement” for which he wants to give you the phone number but can’t locate it…wait—shuffle, shuffle—here it is, call today! He hears a boast that you can “make money on the internet” and not have to stock any merchandise, nor will he even have to pay for it! Money will simply stream in!
He will hear about green tea for bursitis, peach pit extract for erectile dysfunction, fish oil for zits, snake oil for splenetic fever outbreaks, homeopathic miracle cures, salves for any wound, just apply your credit card liberally.
Our lefty will quite rationally infer that anybody who responds to any of these ads is an idiot. Or deluded, or troubled in spirit, or willfully stupid. He will guess something has gone wrong, that synapses have misfired.
And who, he asks himself, are listening to these ads? Conservatives! No wonder they are such dim, poor souls. Lefty’s reflexive Desire To Help will kick in, and he will wonder whether the government can impose a fairness doctrine so that radio listeners can be saved from themselves.
Radio, in short, will have frightened him badly, but he will falsely conclude that only conservatives are fools. He will not—he will not need to—tune in Ron Kudy, Rachel Maddow, Charles Binder or other hosts at the leftist Air America, so he will not discover the commercials found there are identical to those aired on Sean Hannity. Barely ethical and shady ads have nothing to do with politics, they are inherent to the medium. NPR understands this, which is why it uses the euphemism “sponsorships” for its advertisements.
Even if you are not a conservative (I am certain I do not qualify) but you enjoy the human voice and want to hear different opinions from those broadcast on TV, then it would behoove you to write to your station’s program manager and ask him to soften his greed and reject the edgiest ads.
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Note Before you add your undoubtedly hilarious, “Here’s another reason leftists think conservatives are idiots”, be aware that those folks have a list just as long as yours.
Thanks for a very balanced and humorous article.
Just as you were certain that Palin would be the vice president? 😀
I also don’t understand where you’re going with the ads stuff. Apparently you ditch them more than conservatives and leftists.
Put your TiVo (you do have a TiVo, or at least a DVR don’t you?) on record for one week for daytime TV shows on all the major networks, with particular focus on the syndicated shows (Judge Judy, Peoples Court, Dr. Phil, Oprah, etc.). What is crazier than putting your gold jewelry in an envelope and mailing it off to parts unknown and expecting to get a fair price? Not to mention all the ambulance chasers trolling for personal injury cases or possible asbestos victims to attach to a settlement.
It makes me long for the days of Kellog’s Sugar Pops commercials where they bragged about how much sugar was in the cereal. At least they were honest!
You’re absolutely right. Those ads are the dumbest, most insipid, insulting, and ridiculous messages in the media. The only possible explanation for this is that they are taxpayer funded, government sponsored.
Radio?
I seem to remember something about that. Back in the last century sometime.
The ads you describe are also occasionally seen on places like randi.org and other skeptic sites that spend time laughing at them along with the usual homeopathic and acupuncture garbage.
The stupidest ads are those where some person says: “Vote for me and I’ll give you lots of free goodies and I honestly, definitely, cross my heart, won’t raise your taxes.”
Who on earth would think anyone could be foolish enough to fall for that nonsense.
Most of the talk on “talk-radio” is, indeed, stupid advertisements and repetitive moronic “lead-ins” by the show host . But I don’t see much difference when I turn on the TV. Anyway, the level of discussion in the ads on both media is much too advanced for most of the Lefties I know. So I doubt that your thesis is correct.
Has the professor considered all this low brow stuff might be intentional? How better to fly under an enemy’s radar than to delude him into thinking his adversary is too dumb to count for much? Of course even if one is not a leftist (I am certain I do not qualify) it is human nature to under-appreciate those whose belief systems are at variance with one’s own.
Apparently the quality of talk radio’s ads in my neck of the woods is a trifle higher than the examples given, but even so one local advertiser gives me pause. Why would a “Psychic Hotline” need to advertise on the radio? Wouldn’t they simply anticipate and directly phone those desiring their services? Thus eliminating the middle man, so to speak?
I agree that the “kars for kids” ads are truly dreadful. When that one starts I have to shut my radio off.
This is all the more reason to have a representative republic. It’s been several centuries since one man could essentially know it all. Demand more of your Representatives.
We can no longer ever know it all. None of us can cite a reputable source for every assertion we make or truth we know. Thus many things scientific have become baseless appeals to some authority by the public. Thus the science, in at least the areas of climate and the environment, is no longer scientific. It has now become subject to a vote. How absurd is this?
Our President apparently said this:
“At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe.†Barrack Obama, June 23, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/23/obama-climate-change-congress
Who all is telling our President this nonsense. CO2 contaminates the water we drink. CO2 pollutes the air we breath. Where to begin. Then we hear about the EPA hiding sound climate science and claiming that no matter what, the decision has been made, before solicitation for public comment.
The point is that scientific integrity matters, at least in most professions.
Bottom line, climate ‘science’ has ultimately become a social science debated among the body politic. Thus empirical science is not only discredited, the scientific method becomes subject to a vote. This has happened before, and millions died.
I need another drink.
I agree about the radio station cutting the clearly dodgy ads. Cheesey ads are bad enough without the conmen. Reputable companies won’t want to advertise amidst that sort of thing.
A soothing sound is the shipping forecast on the BBC. Condensed information, meaningless to people like me; when I hear it, especially if it’s late or I’m away it is exciting and comforting all at once. Looking at the utube links it seems I’m not the only one who thinks so. Everyone’s having fun with it, who would have thought that.
Radio four is generally of a similar tone, but my favourite is terry wogan on radio two in the mornings.
He always raises a smile. He’s very naughty though with his Janet and John sketches. No idea how they let him get away with it, probably because it’s for charity. It’s not even what he says that’s funny but the fact he can’t read his script for laughing, it’s obvious there’s a joke coming, he is usually joined by the traffic, weather and news people who only encourage him.
Here’s a trusted BBC voice to soothe the soul!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWl0QD9W-Oc&feature=related
To all concerned,
One reason I retired early from research at EPA years ago was good
science was beginning to be sidetracked for political purposes. In this
case EPA has been completely derailed. I have spent the last four years
of my retirement studying all the data I could find to get to the truth about climate change. I just finished a presentation that shows ample evidence that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide do not cause global warming. Carbon dioxide has been falsely convicted on circumstantial evidence by a politically selected jury. A just retrial could overturn this conviction before we punish ourselves by trying to control emissions that will have no effect on climate change. You can view the presentation at http://www.kidswincom.net/climatechangepdf.pdf and be your own judge and jury.
Sincerely,
Fred H. Haynie
Retired Environmental Scientist
Never has the bald bias of the media been more evident than in the non-reaction to a recent statement by Barack Obama. Had it been made by George W or even Ronald R (anyone remember his statement about the dangers posed by trees!), there would have been a guffaw festival.
Here is what he said in a speech this week: “At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air that we breathe.”
That statement makes scientology seem sane but hardly a peep.
Some satirising was attempted here:
http://web.mac.com/louiedeviceful/louiedeviceful/Blunt_International.html
Regards
Ian Johnson
Broadcasting certainly makes strange bedfellows. In my city, the major AM station is a bastion of conservative talk. The “morning guy” is local, gets out into the community, does good causes, has been around for eons, is extremely conservative and opinionated, and dominates the ratings.
Like most local radio, the station buys syndicated feeds for the hourly national news. For years the station used CBS radio, and for obvious reasons, this would annoy the hell out of the morning guy. So finally, they switched to Fox radio for the national news. (Actually, Fox radio plays the news quite straight.)
But when they first made the switch, for some reason, the Fox news radio segments came imbedded with a god-awful series of sanctimonious Ad Counci/Earth Share public service announcements. A transcript of one is here.
http://www.earthshare.org/psa/Heart_Source.pdf
The transcript really doesn’t do the ad justice though. The voice-over was by some woman who sounded like she had both gargled thumb tacks that morning and misplaced her Dulcolax for several weeks.
An innocent traveler driving through on the Interstate might have come across this station during one of these ads and thought “Oh…an NPR station!”
In San Franciso, the leading “Conservative” and “Liberal” talk radio stations are owned by the same company, and run the same god-awful adds, ususally at the same time.
Interesting…….I haven’t listened to a radio (or watched a television) for about 10 years. Never heard a Kars4Kids commercial. But last year I needed to get rid of a clunker and I found them on the internet. And it was a good deal for me. It would have cost me hundreds for the towing alone (this was, in my case, particularly difficult) but instead they handled it. (OK, to be honest, I helped with the pushing part. Tricky with four flat tires.) (And yes, come to think of it, I put up with the muttering and cursing of the tow truck driver, but still, it didn’t cost me a thing……..) Anyhow, I have no complaints.
Oh yeah……..avoid calling them on the phone. You will sit on hold for a long time and you will listen to the world’s most obnoxious jingle………
Gold sellers too. Oh…and all the Heartland yuck yucks. And most all of the hoi polloi at skeptic sites.
Well, if you can get past the ads and listen to the content, I doubt your impression of the people who would believe that stuff would go much higher.
Wherever you fall on the opinion spectrum, Limbaugh really is a big, fat idiot.
I suspect you’re right that most journalists voted for Obama, and for the same reason they did in ’32. Not because they are partisans (even if they also are), but because they just watched Reaganomics destroy about $5,000,000,000 of (putative) value and 10,000,000 people lose their jobs — and counting.
Voters tend to punish political parties with that kind of record.
I am a journalist, but I did not vote for Obama or for McCain. Neither is remotely qualified.