NP Rank:
Liberal Radio So Bad Liberal Austin Dumps it
One Liberal Austin Resident said"
I live in Austin and have a number of "liberal" friends who are always up to debating issues on the merit of the issue. I have heard from all of them that the problem with Air America and why it will not succeed, even in Austin, is that it offers no critical thinking of issues. Their biggest reason they stopped listening was because it was just a constant bashing of Bush, no matter if he was at fault or not, and was so full of hateful rhetoric that has no place in serious debates. One told me it is actually quite uncomfortable to listen to because it makes her side of the political spectrum look "stupid".
It is no secret that Air America is a favorite of most if not all the liberal denizens of many newsrooms. In Austin today, Austin Statesman reporter W. Gardner Selby cemented that reputation in his/her publicity piece on Air America's demise in Austin, Texas. Wrote Selby,Air America seeks another home in Central Texas, but nothing is imminent, Kaufman said. He'd welcome tips at dkaufman@airamerica.com. "If someone can point me in the direction of someone more amenable to picking up our format, I'll take all the help I can get," Kaufman said.
I am aware that the liberal media will do virtually anything to try to counteract the conservative dominance of talk radio, but for a supposedly neutral reporter to publish the liberal talk radio's contact information along with a barely-disguised plea for someone to add Air America to their radio lineup strikes me as somehow beyond the pale. Can anyone imagine a similar cry for help if Rush (or any other conservative) went off the air due to low ratings? However, Selby makes his/her own personal feelings even clearer by quoting from a poster on the Democratic Underground website- a site whose partisanship is not in question. Yet Selby apparently considers them mainstream enough to use as a quote, writing,
A blogger writing on democraticunderground.com was dismayed. "This is a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic, but the right-wing talk radio stations in town consistently get much better ratings."
It seems to me that if Air America could not succeed in Austin- one of the most liberal cities in the United States, then perhaps Selby and his friends on the Democratic Underground might consider that their product is less than appealing, or perhaps, echoes that of the so-called mainstream media a little too closely. People welcome alternative voices, not a single ideological echo chamber. If the liberals understood this, they might understand why the mainstream media is losing their audience and why liberal talk radio consistently fails so spectacularly. But of course, if they could understand that, they would not be the monolithically liberal media.




Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 03:16 on October 24th, 2007
juan114, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 03:56 on October 24th, 2007
Thanks for posting this juan114. In the end of the day Rush is a great entertainer. If his talk show was about yard waste he would still have an audience in the millions. He would know how to get us hooked - a master of the genre . And he is in a different league to anything on Air America. But I don't like any of these type of shows. They are all divisive in that they contribute to the accute polarization we see in America today. These are not places you go to find considered or balanced opinion. These are places where people go to be smugly confirmed in their views and not have them questioned. Security in numbers if you like. So perhaps NP has the edge here! I would not want to stop people listening to these shows either. I vote with the off button on my radio and I would like "EVERBODY" to have that choice.
at 04:06 on October 24th, 2007
good stuff juan114.
at 10:54 on October 30th, 2007
I swear I thought Air America was dead.