It's My Party and I'll Lie (On Air) if I Want To

The Birmingham area talk radio market is a celebration of one-sided viewpoints by the right wingers and Tea Partiers leaving the large numbers of independent thinkers and voters without an invitation to the discussion. That is unless they want to become the public pinata du jour for not being in lock step with the host and the stations' skewed views.

We have gotten a lot of emails on this subject and decided it is time to present some commentary about it.

"The death knell of radio is predictability. If you can predict what a host is going to say, you will not tune in. It all comes down to that person’s ability to take an unpredictable path that challenges you and makes you stretch, even if you’re opposed to them. Another thing people don’t realize about great hosts is that half their audience does not necessarily subscribe to their beliefs. They’re listening because they’re entertained. They want to be challenged."

And they want to be included in the discussion. 

And they want the truth from both sides, not just the left or the right.

If you listen to talk radio in Alabama, you get more of a sermon than a free and open discussion. Listeners calls are heavily moderated, more so on some stations than others, and since the hosts knows from the screen in front of them what a caller has on their mind, frequently a dissenting voice is put on right before a break, effectively diminishing their time to speak.

Or worse--they are attacked on air and sometimes it descends into a shouting match instigated by certain hosts.

When a politician is being interviewed, few calls are taken by one well-known personality of WAPI's morning drive. It's really more of a one way interview than a discussion. To be fair, that may be the demand of the politician more so than the host, but wouldn't it make for a much more lively interview to hear callers of differing views speaking to the subject at hand, while the political head is on the line? And why wouldn't the host require the politician to listen to their constituents as a requisite for the interview?

Could it be because the host wouldn't get the ego stroke of a pipeline to to the politicians, who may not be so eager to go on the show if they knew it would be more of an public discussion? If we're talking about Alabama politicians, which we are, the answer is oh heck yes.

Public discourse and hard questions should be encouraged by our media outlets despite their political leanings.

We're upset with the Tea Party in Alabama because they seem to have been given a media platform others do not have. It's a one way conversation that seems to, based on some caller's views, bring out the fringe element, i.e. one frequent caller to Hart's show on WYDE "Michael" said this not too long ago:

"Some of these people better watch what they say or they just might go to hell for it."

"Michael" is a strange conundrum of fundamentalist thumper and intolerant right winger who's frequently inflammatory with his comments, and while he certainly has a right to his views, is it the kind of rhetoric that adds to a conversation and elevates the discussion or is it extremism that takes it down the low road and straight into a ditch?

And what does the host say to his audience when he allows this kind of rhetoric to be voiced unchallenged?

You can pick any topic, at random, that is 'ascribed to the left side of the aisle' and tune in any time of the day or night on Alabama talk radio and find that is all the discussion is about--the 'evil left.' 

All right wing all the time. 

It's tiring, predictable, monotonous and leaves out the voice of the independents, who we dare say, are not a small majority anymore.

But there is no room for them at the party on the airwaves in Alabama.

Readers of our site should know we go after everybody. Sometimes the left hates us, other times it's the right who sends us hate mail. But with independents we consistently get kudos and that's our target audience. 

We admittedly do lean more harshly on the right because they make themselves easy targets with their self-proclaimed moral high ground propaganda and 'good Christians' branding while their actions seem to be more about corporate love than brotherly love.

Last time we checked, corporations don't have souls and hearts. They're not living breathing beings, they are profit driven soulless machines whose only purpose is the bottom line, and how much damage they do to people or the environment to get there does not figure into it. As long as it turns a profit.

That's the other part of the problem with media--they are beholden to advertisers for revenue. The advertisers influence the media message today more than they ever have and it's changed media for the worse. Clear Channel Radio (WAPI) is corporate radio. Crawford Broadcasting (WYDE) is Tea Party Radio.

We'd love to see the day come when there is a populace driven forum of ideas and discussion in the talk radio market of Alabama, but we're not holding our breath anticipating it anytime in the near or distant future.

Independents deserve a voice in Alabama. All citizens deserve the truth about topics that have real consequences on their everyday lives and we think that does not happen on talk radio. What's that old adage about three sides to every story? Yours, mine and the truth?

Radio hosts are in a powerful position behind their microphones to influence large numbers of people on any given day about a plethora of topics. We'd like to see more of them step outside their comfort zones and explore and flesh out opinions on all sides rather than staying in the zone of predictability.

The Tea Party is just as predictable and they can be counted on to inflame and fan the fires of extremism, and despite their claims of "our ranks are growing" the general sentiment in America is their time to be nationally relevant has come and gone, Independents are leaving the movement in droves.

This editorial from Oregon Live sums up our thoughts exactly:

There are plenty of legitimate policy arguments one can make against President Barack Obama and his administration. But as far as the Tea Party is concerned, I don't hear any of them.

Instead, all I hear is fear mongering, misinformation, hyperbole and demagoguery. All I hear is Obama was born in Kenya, Obama is a Muslim, Obama wants to kill grandma with "death panels," Obama is a Marxist conspiring to transform America. Blah, blah, blah.

I initially thought the Tea Party was a good thing. In fact, I had high hopes that it might even birth, no pun intended, actual valuable political discourse.

But with each Looney Tune that crawled out of the woodwork -- from Sharron Angle to Joe Miller to Christine O'Donnell and more -- I began to re-evaluate, eventually concluding that I was sorely wrong, and that the self-proclaimed Tea Party, in fact, serves no real useful, tangible or abstract purpose whatsoever other than providing a nutty right-wing balance to the long-established nutty left wing.

In our view, the Tea Party is nothing more than bomb throwers and fringe dwellers that their 'Daddy' Mr. Republican Party has sent out of the room so it doesn't embarrass the 'grown up' right wing establishment.

The "very first Tea Party on air in America for the masses" courtesy of WYDE and CCC, was expected to draw "80-100" but only managed about a dozen, one-tenth of the estimated crowd predicted to "take control of our country." They'll probably blame it on the bad weather, which may have have been a factor, but we won't know until they do it again. And they will. But why should they? Why should Clear Channel Communications, who rose to media dominance during the Bush years, and Crawford Broadcasting give one fringe group frequent and unfettered access to its airwaves?

Maybe this is why:

"The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. 

In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire."
"In addition, Hicks steered a controversial scheme to use the University of Texas' $13 billion endowment for private investment. Among the beneficiaries were the Carlyle Group, the arms investment firm tied to both George Bush Sr. and the bin Laden family, and George W Bush's controversial Harken Oil drilling project in Bahrain." (Sourcewatch.org)

For a group that rails against big government and special interest groups like the Tea Party (and Mr. Hart of WYDE) frequently does, it appears if it is on their side of the agenda then it's perfectly acceptable. In fact, it's fostered to help get the message out, because after all, they know so much better than the rest of us how things should be in America and Alabama.

And they are not afraid to tell you over and over and over...

'Do as I say not as I do.'

Because it really is MY party and I will lie if I want to but I want you to consider me "Your Source for the Truth."