Newsweek article on Air America

[Donna Halper]

Larry wrote--

>Especially since AA cannot be heard in most of NH, except by 
>listening online.  My guess is that most of the online listening is 
>by the people who are going to vote Democratic anyway, and thus is 
>preaching to the choir.

Well, the righties are often preaching to the choir too, but nobody 
says right wing talk shouldn't exist, whereas a lot of critics 
asserted that there was no need for progressive talk since allegedly 
the media are liberal-- which is utter nonsense, as I have said many 
times. The media are corporate and tend to follow whoever is in 
power-- the favourable coverage the president received in the run-up 
to the Iraq war and the mainstream media's total lack of questioning 
of his policies until Hurricane Katrina has been remarked upon by 
columnists both left and right.  As I see it, whether Air America 
lasts or vanishes won't affect a lot of cities since the majority of 
affiliates tended to be weak signals with no promotion.  But what 
will affect a lot of cities is that certain individual talk hosts are 
getting their own affiliates nation-wide, with or without Air 
America.  Ed Schultz, as I have mentioned before, is on some stations 
that have some righties and some lefties. Ditto for Stephanie 
Miller.  I doubt that Jones will abandon their progressive hosts, 
since as I said in an earlier post, Ed has been turning a profit for 
over a year and Stephanie is breaking even and nearly turning a 
profit.  I expect other hosts like Thom Hartmann  or Rachel Maddow to 
get out from under AAR and syndicate themselves, which may mean there 
are not as many all-progressive stations but there may be more 
stations with a combination of some right wing hosts and some liberal 
or moderate hosts.  But let's not entirely write off progressive talk 
just yet.  It has a loyal following in certain markets and I doubt 
that will change no matter who is in control of congress, just as 
whether it was a Republican or a Democratic congress didn't affect 
Rush Limbaugh's numbers.  The good radio hosts will survive somehow, 
no matter what their political persuasion may be.