Hates Talk Radio–and Those Who Listen //
Liberals love to believe that conservatives are closed-minded and incapable of listening to opposing opinions. However, when “mainstream” journalists discuss talk radio and how it’s “bad to America”, you can see that they often have difficulty understanding the other side.
CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” devoted its entire show this week to “A Nation Divided.” CBS wants you to believe it doesn’t like division and isn’t divisive. That’s false.
Ted Koppel, fill-in host, said: “Tens to millions of Americans get political marching orders via the radio.” How insulting! How divisive is this? Listening to conservative radio hosts is a sign that you are (to borrow a Washington Post insult) “poor and uneducated” and “easy to command.”
Democracy is supposed be about persuasion. You’re not going persuade anyone or unify the nation by saying half of us take “marching orders” from talk radio generals. It seems like CBS liberals are frustrated at not being able to follow their “marching orders”.
Jim Axelrod was the CBS reporter. Although he is not related to David Axelrod (Democratic strategist), they sound like brothers. He started with insults: “Thirty five years after the talk-radio revolution, ‘on air’ is still often an exercise of ‘off the tracks’.” This is from the Dan Rather Channel, which somehow never got off the rails into fake information.
Brian Rosenwald was Axelrod’s first talk radio expert. His 2019 book on talk radio features blurbs from CNN’s Michael Smerconish and CBS’ John Dickerson. Alterman is the socialist crank who wrote “What Liberal Media?”
Rosenwald complained that talk radio had “unquestionably divided Americans.” It has unquestionably distorted our politics.” Axelrod then questioned Rosenwald about his opinion. He replied, “It is not!” It’s bad news for America. This shows how dishonest this segment is. Only conservatives can divide and “harden” our politics. CBS and other liberal channels do not do this.
Next was Michael Harrison, Talkers Magazine’s “bible” for talk-radio listeners. Harrison stated that America would be better served if liberal talk radio was just as popular as conservative. This is a joke. CBS then reverted to Rosenwald, who accurately compared Limbaughs with Jon Stewart and late-night lefty entertainers. Their polarizing talk, like Stephen Colbert mocking Donald Trump, was a blatant attempt to “harden” our politics.
CBS also noted with surprise that NPR is the “one part of the dial that’s liberal turf”. This “attracts large numbers” and is “relatively controlled” to commercial radio which seeks “ever more extreme approaches to attracting listeners.”
This is how liberals view NPR, but it’s completely wrong. NPR promoted “In Defense of Looting,” a book that argued that left-wing riots for “racial Justice” should be celebrated and called “rebellions.” NPR brought on radical-left author Anand Giridharadas to complain about President Joe Biden’s 2020 statement that “rioting isn’t protesting, looting are not protesting.”
Some extreme comments have been broadcast by CBS’ “Sunday Morning” program. Nancy Giles, who was a victim of Hurricane Katrina 2005, criticized President George W. Bush. She said that if the victims were predominantly white, they wouldn’t have been left to float on putrid water. John Leonard, a CBS TV critic, compared the Republicans to a “slash and burn Khmer Rouge.”
CBS journalists believe that conservative radio is bad news for America. However, when they compare conservatives with the Cambodian communist crackpots, it’s not divisive. It’s a sweet bag of reason.
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