Monday, July 09, 2007

The N&O’s Talk Radio Spin (Post 1)

The liberal trending left Raleigh News & Observer today “reported” to readers on efforts to bring back something called “the Fairness Doctrine.” The story began:

After conservative radio talk show hosts helped bury an immigration bill, Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi complained that "talk radio is running America."

Lott suggested a remedy that immediately got talk-show hosts talking: He suggested bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, which would force broadcasters to provide more political balance on the nation's airwaves.

"It's absurd," said Mike Shanin, a self-described conservative radio-talk show host in Kansas City, Mo.

Shanin said there's no doubt that liberals have been left behind in the world of talk radio and that it makes perfect economic sense: "If liberal talk worked, it would be on. It's been tried." . . .
Shanin's right as far as he goes. Liberal talk radio has, for the most part, failed when forced to compete the free-market environment. It just can’t stand up to conservative talk radio in that environment.

But liberal talk radio has been hugely successful when granted government subsidies and other special considerations. Just look at the hundreds of NPR stations across America.

That’s why liberals want government agencies at all levels to spend more money supporting NPR stations.

It’s even likely that most liberals agree with leftists that the government should invoke the discredited, out-of-date and unfair “Fairness Doctrine” to limit the access conservatives and others have to the airwaves.

Further along the N&O offers a subhead,
Tilt to the right
The N&O did that just in case its most devoted readers wouldn’t understand why “conservative talk radio” needs to be shackled by the Big Brother hand of Big Government.

The N&O follows it subhead with:
Talk radio contains 10 times as much conservative talk as liberal talk, according to a study released last month by The Center for American Progress, a research and educational institute that works for "progressive and pragmatic solutions," and Free Press, a group that focuses on media competitiveness.

The report, "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," found that among the 257 news-talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the talk was conservative and 9 percent was progressive. Ninety-two percent of the stations did not broadcast a single minute of liberal talk, according to the study.
These two paragraphs are worth a closer look, as is the rest of the N&O’s spin story.

I’ll do that when I post again on this story tomorrow.

In the meantime, two things:

1) You can read the rest of the N&O's story here and draw your own conclusions;

2) Unless you’re a “devoted N&O reader,” you’re surely smart enough to know I’m going to start out tomorrow exposing the N&O’s use of “progressive” in place of “liberal” or “leftist.”

I hope you’re back tomorrow.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always liked Trent Lott until he ran into the PC buzz saw. He hasn't seemed worth much since. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Anyone who can't stand up to the looney left will be destroyed by it.

Oh and, talk radio is the balance to the liberal MSM.

Anonymous said...

If the left dominates CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NPR and the BBC, why shouldn't the right dominate Fox?

Anonymous said...

I'll be back! Tomorrow. Can't wait to read the rest of what you have to say. By the way, I live on the Left Coast (as Bill Anderson likes to call it), but was born and raised in Chicago, so what does that make me?

Anonymous said...

Hey, let the fair market economy work. If the liberals want to spend the money and put forth their answer to the conservative talk show hosts, so be it. Can they find anybody who can do a whole hour with intelligent analysis?

Keep the government OUT of the decision! Let the listeners vote with their dials. Bring it ON!

The more the liberals talk, the less they say, and the better the conservatives sound. Give them a chance to show how little grasp / hope they really have to offer.

If they do that, the MSM moguls faithfully promise to "balance the scales" with a 1 to 1 ration of conservative to liberal reporters, right?

Anonymous said...

Re: 11:42

It makes you dyslefsick.

Anonymous said...

Re: 12:05...

Is this Polanski? I doubt it. I am not intelligent enough. Debrah, perhaps? although you are a giant!!

Anonymous said...

Feedback? Please!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @ 10:59 nails it. The networks, the major newspapers and news magazines, PBS, NPR, all the cable news less Fox are ALL organs of the left (I won't use the term "liberal" because a true liberal is an honorable person and today's leftists are anything but honorable). I don't listen to any of the right-wing radio talk shows or the Pat Robertson broadcasts primarily because they end up being mouthpieces for Israel. I am perplexed at the tendency of right-wingers--especially religious fundamentalists--to rally around Israel despite the damage we have sustained by and because of Israel. Yeah, I know I'll be labeled an anti-semite because the Israeli lobby follows the same protocol as the NAACP; if anyone criticizes you just call them anti-black, anti-semite, anti-whatever then you don't have to address the specific point. Anyway, in the finest tradition of freedom of speech, I've said my piece.

Anonymous said...

Re 7:34 AM Israel

If you truly want to understand the Israel issue ( which is fundamentally one of heritage and not contemporary politics) you will need to do some UNBIASED reading. Christians who understand their own origins ( in Judiasm) choose to support the Jewish people and Israel as a nation. They see their ultimate destiny as linked together and take seriously the mandate to "Bless Israel"

That should NOT mean that they always support the Israeli politics. Kind of like Americans being patriotic to USA, but NOT always supporting current politics. Don't know what this has to do with present topic (media) but instead of asking "Why"? with derision, it may help to ask "Why" with actual desire to know! It doesn't help anybody to counter bigotry and prejudice from the right with more bigotry and prejudice from the left. ( or vice versa)

Hope this doesn't open a flood of nasty sentiments pro and con. Just get tired of folks making lame statements without understanding any historical context.

Anonymous said...

Please answer one question: if Christians support Israel because of their beliefs, why does our Government, which is supposed to be non-sectarian, feel the same need? George Washington warned in his farewell speech about "entangling foreign alliances" which is what we have today with Israel. I have no bias pro- or con- Judaism, but I do not believe the United Nations decree of Israeli statehood was legitimate. I am joined, by the way, by the entire Hassidim community, so please don't accuse me of being anti-semitic. I am prepared to discuss the attempted sinking of the USS LIBERTY by Israeli Defense Forces, and the Pollard affair, if anyone desires.

JWM said...

Folks,

Everyone on this thread has been within this blog's civility bounds.

So far!

But we're starting to get off-topic.

There are many blogs that are set up just to discuss U.S.-Israel relations. They are easily found and often have informed discussions although, as you all might guess, there's often a lot of flaming by people on all sides.

John