Have you seen today's Boston Globe?...

[Bill O'Neill]

Donna Halper wrote:
> And it seems we will never again see a meaningful effort to have a 
> "town meeting of the air" the way we once did.  For that, I am very 
> sorry, as I believe the hyper-partisanship of today's meeting is a 
> mixed blessing.  It gets supporters all riled up, but doesn't teach 
> anyone anything new-- which is what talk radio used to be known for...
Hear, hear!  <weak pun intended>  Back in the day I often said that I 
was more interested in the fact that the caller actually had an opinion, 
a passion for a subject, than what the actual opinion was.  Hannity, for 
instance, seems to use his show as a platform for the repetitive 
expression of his talking points -- regardless of whether or not he is 
in his monologue or if a caller is on the line with him -- it is as if 
the caller is just a selected witness to his stated opinion. 

Rush has survived this long not just because of his consistent brand but 
because of his respectful caller utilization and loyalty to his 
show-elements.  Dispute all day about the merits of his viewpoints or 
the potential methodology of call selection, there's not that tension 
that I sense when listening to terrestrial and satellite talk today, of 
all genres. 

What is missing is new blood from the collective caller-pool; it is, 
quite simply, not easy to be a caller. You must be thick-skinned, have a 
load of time on your hands to hold-on, and not care if your first line 
out of the box is followed by a disconnect with no social break in the 
discussion. Today, the caller is merely a byproduct, a foil, a tool, one 
of the masses of the adoring faithful.  It's okay that some PDs or hosts 
themselves may not want to "thank you for the call" the show to death, 
common social amenities or "across the fence" decency would go a long 
way at raising the bar in what has collectively devolved into personal 
forums for weak egos of the under-initiated. 

Sometimes I think about getting back into the studio but the longer I 
examine what has become of talk radio the more I understand why it may 
be slipping in relevancy among media and new media.

Bill O'Neill