Next You'll Be Telling Me Pro Wrestling Is Fake
Read the whole thing to get a former producer's full take on right-wing-talk-radio where he used to work, but here's a few highlights:
To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners....
Hint: The more talk show hosts squawk about something – the louder their voice, the greater their emotion, the more effusive their arguments – the more they’re worried about the issue. For example, talk show hosts eagerly participated in the 2004 Swift Boating of John Kerry because they really feared he was going to win. This is a common talk show tactic: If you lack compelling arguments in favor of your candidate or point of view, attack the other side. These attacks often rely on two key rhetorical devices, which I call You Know What Would Happen If and The Preemptive Strike.
Using the first strategy, a host will describe something a liberal has said or done that conservatives disagree with, but for which the liberal has not been widely criticized, and then say, “You know what would happen if a conservative had said (or done) that? He (or she) would have been filleted by the ‘liberal media.’ ” This is particularly effective because it’s a two-fer, simultaneously reinforcing the notion that conservatives are victims and that “liberals” are the enemy.
The second strategy, The Preemptive Strike, is used when a host knows that news reflecting poorly on conservative dogma is about to break or become more widespread. When news of the alleged massacre at Haditha first trickled out in the summer of 2006, not even Iraq War chest-thumper Charlie Sykes would defend the U.S. Marines accused of killing innocent civilians in the Iraqi village. So he spent lots of air time criticizing how the “mainstream media” was sure to sensationalize the story in the coming weeks. Charlie would kill the messengers before any message had even been delivered....
But the key reason talk radio succeeds is because its hosts can exploit the fears and perceived victimization of a large swath of conservative-leaning listeners. And they feel victimized because many liberals and moderates have ignored or trivialized their concerns and have stereotyped these Americans as uncaring curmudgeons.Indeed.
posted by QueensGuy @ 3:40 PM
11 Comments:
I'll take a risk here, not having read the whole thing, as the way too long excerpt made me throw up a little bit: Whoever wrote this does not have a successful talk show. But when he or she does, post it again and I'll read it in awe.
(My word verification is "sunce," close enough to dunce for government work. Dunce with a smile, let's say.)
Another bitter loser discussing the obvious. All politics is (and has always been about) saying "we're the victims" and the other guys are holding us down. If anything, this is even truer on the left. The difference is I believe most talk show radio guys believe what they're saying (even Michael Medved who explicitly says he's not a victim) while politicians might by cynical enough to say it even when they know it's nonsense.
And Liberal Talk Radio (Air America, for example) fails, why exactly? Because no one on the liberal side sees themselves as a victim?
After 8 years of W, I kinda doubt that.
Now that talk radio is slowly dying, we get the analyses?
Anon one, the article says he was the producer for a successful right wing radio host - Charlie Sykes. Being an NPR listener, I couldn't vouch whether that's a successful show or not.
VG, my pop-psychology explanation for why liberal talk radio doesn't work corresponds to a recent NYTimes article about scientists positing that conservatives may have better senses of humor because liberals feel the need to change things, while conservatives can accept their limited ability to effect change on the problems of the world. Talk radio is not the place for sophisticated arguments, so "stop trying to take our money!" plays far better than "here are three priorities where our money should be going instead of where it's going now!"
Sorry, that should have read "conservatives can accept government's limited ability to effect positive change on the problems of the world."
The problems with these analyses is that they reinforce the notion that the conservative/liberal divide is some essential fact of nature rather than just they way arguments are splitting in current political climate. In 25 or 50 or 100 years, left v. right will be as relevant as transsubstantiation v. consubstantiation battles of the Reformation or the Blues v. the greens in Constantinople or the country v. the court in 18th century British Parliaments- all very important divisions at the time but not currently terribly relevant to any explanation of the political condition.
Yes, but wouldn't that argument apply to NPR as well? Or are they an exception to the rule of "talk radio is not the place for sophisticated arguments"?
Well, yes, I guess NPR is the exception. I suppose I was using "talk radio" to refer to the overtly opinion-based O'Reilly/Olbermann style of one-guy-with-a-mike-and-a-chip-on-his-shoulder partisan hackery. NPR isn't nearly so overtly biased in one direction. I mean, I certainly wouldn't call the BBC world service in the morning conservative, nor Marketplace in the evening progressive.
NPR and BBC are certainly biased. Their tone is better than Olbermann/O'Reilly, but they're fully as biased.
Assuming you mean liberal bias, anon, have you ever listened to Marketplace? It's on at 630 here in NYC. Not a liberal program by any stretch of the term.
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