"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Monday, February 16, 2009

Why are the people who run progressive talk radio such nimrods?
Posted by Jill | 8:49 PM
There are few people who have been bigger supporters of progressive talk radio than I am, and few blogs that have been more supportive than this one. Here at Casa la Brilliant, we started listening to Air America Radio from the very first day. Mr. Brilliant tuned in at noon on March 31, 2004, and we both started in with Morning Sedition the very next day. The trials and tribulations of Air America are now legendary, from the petty and preposterous Danny Goldberg first cancelling Unfiltered, which featured the creator of The Daily Show and some lesbian who'd never amount to anything named, uh, RACHEL MADDOW; and then Morning Sedition. The latter show will someday be listened to by radio cultists the way Jean Shepherd and Bob & Ray are today. I don't think Air America ever got its bearings back after that, as it has spent the last three years futzing around, first losing Al Franken to the then-unknown purgatory of running for Senate in Minnesota, screwing over the talented and loyal Sam Seder seventeen ways to Sunday, barely noticing as Rachel Maddow began her tiptoe out the door towards the greener pastures of MSNBC, and finally letting the one person who started out with actual radio experience walk over a contract dispute, deciding that William Kunstler's old protégè was somehow an improvement over the maddening, moody, but passionate and always prepared Randi Rhodes.

I'm not sure what's been going on over at NovaM the last few weeks, but one day I was downloading Randi's podcast and the next day she was gone. There's been much speculation as to exactly what happened, but it is now clear that Sheldon & Anita Drobny, co-founders of AAR who were forced out early on, and Randi Rhodes, have parted ways. And still none of Randi's listeners knows what happened. And the Drobnys and Rhodes are locked in a battle of "we said...she said."

I'm not one of the Randi worshippers that hang out on her messageboard and call her show and call her goddess, though I found that in the months since returning to Florida and syndicating through NovaM, she had returned to the form I used to listen to back in the days when my old job hadn't blocked streaming audio and I would listen to Mike Malloy on the now-defunct ieAmerica and Neil Rogers and Randi Rhodes over internet streams. Randi was tough, funny, and while not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer, always ferociously prepared. And apparently even more self-destructive than Marc Maron, who has managed to get himself fired from Air America twice and is only back in the fold now due to the inescapable reality of his own fiercely loyal fan base -- a fan base for which he has nothing but contempt, as this is a man who does not want to be part of any club that would have him as a member. But at least for the time being, until the suits at Air America decide that some lightweight, droning sleep-inducer needs to be paid instead, they've decided to run with the experiment that is Break Room Live, or as I wish it were called, Two Live Jews.

But back on the radio tubes, all is still crappy in the land of progressive radio. I had taken a Founders Club membership with NovaM after Randi landed there for the sole purpose of downloading her podcasts, since Mike Malloy has become unlistenable now that his show consists entirely of ranting about Israel as if nothing else in the world was going on. NovaM has alienated the only property they had in wide release, while Air America is, I suspect, more reliant than ever on the eyeballs that Marc Maron and Sam Seder are bringing to the company's Web site.

So what is the problem with progressive talk radio?

Labels: , , , , ,

6 comments
Bookmark and Share
6 Comments:
Blogger D. said...
Dunno.

In the olden days (back when knighthood was in flower and I was allergic), talk shows were varied; they talked about topics, they had guests who knew the topic or were charming, and the call-in parts were a very small part of the mix. There were talk shows up and down the spectrum. Mostly it put me to sleep, but I have vague memories of Barry Gray with Kenneth Keating (during the Keep Keating campaign--he lost to Bobby Kennedy), and Bob Fass's Radio Unnameable, which some nights was mostly talk, and whoever came on after Mad Daddy.

In fact, Radio Unnameable was my first experience with what we now know as Internet trolls.

So by the time Talk *pfui* Radio was ensconced at WABC, I was refusing to touch it with circus tent poles, and that attitude remains to this day, and, no, I don't think it's funny sometimes.

The problem with "liberal" (yes, that's in quotes for a reason) talk radio is that it requires a brain to be done well. "Conservative" talk radio does not. The sort of radio personality with a brain and coherent left-of-center political beliefs that can be articulated while someone is screaming babble over the phone can get work (so far, anyway) that does not require contact with poo-flingers. (In the interest of full disclosure, the last talk show I heard was something I woke up to after a World Series game and it was a charming reminiscence of living next door to Famous Baseball Player. And then the idiots returned. There may be a pony, there may be one rose, but, man, that manure mostly stinks.)

Ssorry for the rant.
2/17/09, 12:05 AM  
Blogger D. said...
Also, I didn't actually answer your question.

I suspect the corporation is less concerned with the promulgation of liberal values and more concerned with what they expect of the bottom line. WBAI probably frightens them (the reports of inner dissension would frighten me if I listened to Pacifica anymore) and they have no idea what progressive talk sounds like, and if you said "Jean Shepherd," they'd say, "Who?"
2/17/09, 12:49 AM  
Blogger D. said...
Before I crash for the night: the New Yorker article on Bob Fass.

Bed! Bed! Bed!
2/17/09, 12:57 AM  
Blogger Charles D said...
I have never been a big fan of Randi Rhodes - a bit too much ranting for my taste - but I recognize that she is one of the few popular progressive radio personalities.

Air America still has Thom Hartmann, my personal favorite, who is brilliant, spot-on with his analysis, and willing to engage with the more intellectual right-wing morons.

I do find Ron Reagan listenable, and their weekly shows like Ring of Fire and Freethought Radio are pretty good.

It is far, far from what they could be. If they still had Seder and Rhodes, they would be a pretty solid network.
2/17/09, 9:09 AM  
Blogger Bob said...
One could probably discover much about the difficulties of left radio by looking at the characteristics of reactionary rage: fewer "issues," unsubtle humor rooted in the racist or ethnic joke; older, less educated demographic; & especially clumsy with irony. Rachel's show is about 75% irony. It's difficult to rant irony, & wingnuts are curiously unable to find the irony in making someone such as Rush a reflection of themselves. In a nutshell, it's easy to do wingnut radio because you tap into an audience with low ecpectations. Although you're unlikely to read French philosopher Henri Bergson's treatise on humor, you won't piss on me for recommending it & make jokes about cowardly French people eating stinky cheese.
2/17/09, 1:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Randi Rhodes? What is that?
2/17/09, 8:11 PM  
Post a Comment
<< Home