Recommended Reading

[Dan Strassberg]

The fact that typical talk stations, with mostly right-wing hosts, blatently
neo-con and Rapture-right agendas, and unabashedly slanted "news", get off
suggesting that what they broadcast is at the mainstream of American opinion
simply reinforces the desperate need for liberal or progressive talk
stations. Alas, the majority of "progressive" talk facilities are
second-rate AM signals, although there are some big signals mixed in--in
Portland OR, Seattle, LA, Miami, Denver, and Cincinnati, for example.
However, nearly all are owned by companies such as CCU and Entercom, whose
managements are WAY to the right of center. CCU insists on delaying the
broadcast of Air America's top talent, Randi Rhodes, and may ultimately
replace her with Jerry Springer, whose REALLY DULL show is syndicated by
CCU's own Premiere subsidiary. CCU stations carry hardly any of Mike Malloy,
who I think deserves the widest exposure of any AAR host. What we do get of
Malloy here in Boston airs only on weekends at inconveneient hours, is
delayed by days, and represents just a couple of hours a week of the 15
hours of Malloy that AAR puts on the bird. This is just another in a litany
of examples that show how US news media are in the pockets of big
corporations with hard-right agendas, while all we hear is the unmitigated
lie that the media have a left-wing bias.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>; "Donna Halper"
<dlh@donnahalper.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: Recommended Reading


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> To: "Daniel Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>;
> <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 12:48 AM
> Subject: Re: Recommended Reading
>
> > Not really. Most call themselves "progressive" rather than liberal,
> > although individual hosts may call themselves liberal.  Btw, some
> > conservatives do in fact use the term, but more common is the word
"right"
> > (as in 'from the right', or puns like 'he's got the right stuff').
>
> My point was I am  not aware of talk stations that promote themselves as
> only have hosts from a right or conservative or Republican point of view.
> There are plenty of stations that have hosts that are primarily from a
right
> of center point of view but they usually have other shows that do not fit
> that profile.  For example,. in Portland, the most successful talk station
> is WGAN.  They carry Rush, Howie Carr, and Bill O'Reilly but they also
have
> a liberal co-host of the morning show and a liberal local host on
Saturday,
> plus they run Joy Browne and other shows that are not political.  Air
> America is promoted as an alternative to traditional talk stations, but by
> providing hosts all from one spectrum it is significantly different from
> most traditional talk stations.  There is nothing wrong with that but it
is
> a point that seems to be missing from coverage of Air America.
>
>