I watch exactly no television news, and I really haven't since the early 90s when I pretty much dropped everything except for Charlie Rose. And I basically watched Charlie Rose because many of his guests wrote books, and so I read the books. I have been out of the mainstream media for two decades.
That said, when I moved from NY to ATL, it took some time understanding redneck radio and distinguishing that from Right radio. In those days Hannity was a rank amateur and picked all kinds of stupid examples for everything - but I understood finally where all of Right radio was coming from.
The last time I listened to Right radio on the regular (meaning once or twice per week) was about six years ago with Hugh Hewitt, although I did listen to Dennis Miller for a while too, now that I think of it. But on the whole I don't miss it.
The reason is this. Radio has the opportunity to bring focused attention to deep issues. In order to handle the deep issues properly, you *must* have a companion website that is well edited and has transcripts of every broadcast. I think there are only a few radio personalities who are deep precision shooters, most shoot from the hip and just go overboard on thin talking points. So they would sound stupid in print, where real analysis could take place. But that's the nature of radio and they don't want to change.
Now once upon a time, Bill Bennett had a radio show. There's no way I would give my limited media time to Sean Hannity if Bennett were still on the air. But you see the problem. Bennett got lynched over a soundbite, and that's how radio has been dumbed down to the level of Sean Hannity who sucks by comparison even to that other dude the Left hates. Not Limbaugh but.. the guy on CNN. Anyway. Oh yeah Glenn Beck.
Here's the bottom line. All of broadcast media, all radio and TV pundits are are purveyors of CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. They neither have the will nor the capacity to *teach* and basically what they are expert at is bringing what you already know into punchy dramatic relief. Two maybe three stories a week. Week after week after week.
You will never get them to deal with any politics at the level of law. So everything they do can only be measured by popular polling, not legal or policy ramifications. So it is impossible for them to inform the public at a substantial level - instead they make popular polling seem more important than it is - thereby inflating the significance of their influence.
Here's the other thing. When you're on radio and you come back to a story you did one way (NPR does this all the time) which was wrong. You come back and mention it as if it was only a small part of your interest. I don't know what the logical fallacy of that is, but it's basically like saying - Some people think Joe Biden is not an intelligent Vice President. They thought Dick Cheney was intelligent until he shot that guy in the face. Radio personalities always put disproportionate emphasis in their editorializing. It's horrible journalism and I wish all the Baby Boomers would just die.
Brian Lamb is the last honest, intelligent journalist in America. And if I really cared about politics, I would only watch him and read books he recommends.
That said, when I moved from NY to ATL, it took some time understanding redneck radio and distinguishing that from Right radio. In those days Hannity was a rank amateur and picked all kinds of stupid examples for everything - but I understood finally where all of Right radio was coming from.
The last time I listened to Right radio on the regular (meaning once or twice per week) was about six years ago with Hugh Hewitt, although I did listen to Dennis Miller for a while too, now that I think of it. But on the whole I don't miss it.
The reason is this. Radio has the opportunity to bring focused attention to deep issues. In order to handle the deep issues properly, you *must* have a companion website that is well edited and has transcripts of every broadcast. I think there are only a few radio personalities who are deep precision shooters, most shoot from the hip and just go overboard on thin talking points. So they would sound stupid in print, where real analysis could take place. But that's the nature of radio and they don't want to change.
Now once upon a time, Bill Bennett had a radio show. There's no way I would give my limited media time to Sean Hannity if Bennett were still on the air. But you see the problem. Bennett got lynched over a soundbite, and that's how radio has been dumbed down to the level of Sean Hannity who sucks by comparison even to that other dude the Left hates. Not Limbaugh but.. the guy on CNN. Anyway. Oh yeah Glenn Beck.
Here's the bottom line. All of broadcast media, all radio and TV pundits are are purveyors of CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. They neither have the will nor the capacity to *teach* and basically what they are expert at is bringing what you already know into punchy dramatic relief. Two maybe three stories a week. Week after week after week.
You will never get them to deal with any politics at the level of law. So everything they do can only be measured by popular polling, not legal or policy ramifications. So it is impossible for them to inform the public at a substantial level - instead they make popular polling seem more important than it is - thereby inflating the significance of their influence.
Here's the other thing. When you're on radio and you come back to a story you did one way (NPR does this all the time) which was wrong. You come back and mention it as if it was only a small part of your interest. I don't know what the logical fallacy of that is, but it's basically like saying - Some people think Joe Biden is not an intelligent Vice President. They thought Dick Cheney was intelligent until he shot that guy in the face. Radio personalities always put disproportionate emphasis in their editorializing. It's horrible journalism and I wish all the Baby Boomers would just die.
Brian Lamb is the last honest, intelligent journalist in America. And if I really cared about politics, I would only watch him and read books he recommends.
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