Donna's article from Taylor's Radio-Info

[Alan Tolz]

As a folow-up to Bob and Donna's dialogue, Donna, do you think that Barack 
Obama's win against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary had anything 
to do with Air America?

I would contend that his victory in that race was purely strategic planning, 
fundraising superiority and execution by his field forces as well as 
missteps on her part post Super Tuesday.

It also seems to me that the economy and conservative talk radio's "gone to 
far" attitude - using Obama's middle name as a way to intimate he's not 
going to be fair with Middle East issues, for example - helped Obama more 
than Air America.  Air America was preaching to the converted while the 
Rushes and Severins were creating backlash, though both were increasingly 
irrelevant as compared to years past, IMHO.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: "Bob Nelson" <raccoonradio@mail.com>; <TVNETDUDE@aol.com>; 
<boston-radio-interest@tsornin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: Donna's article from Taylor's Radio-Info


> At 07:53 AM 11/11/2008, Bob Nelson wrote:
>>It isn't just talk radio, as she points out: Liberal viewpoints are not 
>>exactly absent from TV (Olbermann,
>>Matthews, et al), newspapers (Globe, N.Y. Times), magazines (Rolling 
>>Stone, which often
>>had a very negative image of McCain--a man who almost became John Kerry's 
>>running mate
>>in '04), alternative weeklies (Bos. Phoenix), movies (Michael Moore and 
>>friends),
>>comedians (ever see a CONSERVATIVE comic?), music (there were several ROCK 
>>AGAINST
>>BUSH albums; left-leaning concerts like "Rock For Change", etc.)
>
> Oh dear.  Bob conveniently forgets that TV and radio talk shows are still 
> dominated by conservative voices, and that the majority of newspapers have 
> equal numbers of conservative commentators to the liberal ones in most 
> cases.  Also, regarding Chris Matthews, he came over from the "dark 
> side"-- in previous elections, he was absolutely NOT a leftie, and was 
> quite supportive of President Bush, the Iraq War, etc.  But like many 
> moderate righties (including the son of the founder of National Review, 
> Christopher Buckley), he became disenchanted with how Republicans governed 
> (or failed to govern) the country.  There certainly are rightie 
> comedians-- Dennis Miller comes to mind-- and many of the stars of country 
> music were as vehemently pro-McCain as the leftie sources he names were 
> anti-Bush.
>
>>Bob also wrote--
>>And I would think that several of these "voices" were around in the last 
>>two
>>elections, too.
>
> Yes, but my point was that in the past elections, such voices were 
> scattered.  Then as now, righties dominated the talk shows.  But this 
> time, there was a group effort to counter what the righties were saying.
>
> Also, I do not believe, as many of my rightie friends do, that "the media" 
> are liberal.  As I have said before, the media are corporate, and they 
> love an exciting story.  Yeah they ridiculed McCain and Palin sometimes (a 
> lot less with McCain however-- even he has acknowledged that he has deep 
> friendships with many in the media), but they climbed all over Obama about 
> Rev. Wright and the "bitter" comments and other stories they thought would 
> get them some viewers or readers or listeners.  Obama, like him or not, 
> was an exciting story, and as the story unfolded, many media outlets 
> jumped on it and even supported his candidacy where they had never 
> supported a Democrat ever.  I would hardly call the Chicago Tribune 
> liberal-- 
> they were and are right-wing in their editorial policy and had NEVER come 
> out in favour of a Democrat in their entire 155 year history--  till this 
> election.
>
> Bob wrote--
>>Talk radio may have played a part but please remember that there are more 
>>than
>>a few voices from the left in other media.
>
> And there are more than a few voices from the right too.  But my point was 
> that in past elections, the left had no organized way to counter the 
> right-wing talking points.  This election, they did, and I say it worked.
>
>