Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio pioneer, has been called many nasty things before, but never a “structural imbalance.” That’s the fancy term a liberal think tank uses to characterize his success — and to dress up its proposal for counteracting that success through new government regulation.
The report of the Center for American Progress on “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” marks the latest phase in liberaldom’s grappling with conservative talk radio. First came the attempts to create a liberal Limbaugh — Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower, et al. — that fell flat. Then an entire left-wing network, Air America, was founded, and foundered. So there’s only one option left — if you can’t beat them, and you won’t join them, you can agitate for government to regulate them.
The report looks at a slice of 257 talk stations and concludes that more than 90 percent of total weekday talk programming is conservative. The supposed reason for this is, essentially, that media companies are conspiring to shove conservative radio down the throats of listeners in a way they couldn’t if, among other things, government required broadcasters “to regularly show they are operating on behalf of the public interest.”
This is a pinched view of radio. There are upward of 2,000 talk stations in the country that deal with news and issues, according to Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine, and they encompass all sorts of formats from National Public Radio to urban radio to shock jocks, none of which are dominated by right wingers.
Conservative talk radio is a vibrant niche within that market, but there are many other places to go for news and opinion.
What is hard to find are liberal replicas of Rush Limbaugh, and that is due to the deepest structural imbalance of all — talent. Limbaugh and other top conservative talkers are silver-tongued, informative and — importantly — entertaining. These are qualities that can’t be conjured out of nowhere, and designated liberal-radio saviors have tended not to have the requisite talent “on loan from God” (as Limbaugh puts it).
There have been conservative failures at talk radio for the same reason. Without the right mix of substance and entertainment, a host will fail to get ratings, and with that, be yanked from the air.
“Ratings” is a word that appears only once in passing in the Center for American Progress report, because then it would have to acknowledge that conservative radio is successful exactly because it gets listeners.
The report avoids directly calling for a renewal of the constitutionally dubious Fairness Doctrine that mandated equal time for conservative and liberal opinions, although some Democratic lawmakers aren’t so circumspect.
After maintaining that the First Amendment protects nude dancing, they are ready to argue that it doesn’t quite apply to people broadcasting conservative views over the airwaves.
In our toxic contemporary politics, it’s a sign of success if you drive your opponents batty. Limbaugh might be a structural imbalance, but his critics appear simply imbalanced.
Lowry is editor of the National Review.
The report of the Center for American Progress on “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” marks the latest phase in liberaldom’s grappling with conservative talk radio. First came the attempts to create a liberal Limbaugh — Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower, et al. — that fell flat. Then an entire left-wing network, Air America, was founded, and foundered. So there’s only one option left — if you can’t beat them, and you won’t join them, you can agitate for government to regulate them.
The report looks at a slice of 257 talk stations and concludes that more than 90 percent of total weekday talk programming is conservative. The supposed reason for this is, essentially, that media companies are conspiring to shove conservative radio down the throats of listeners in a way they couldn’t if, among other things, government required broadcasters “to regularly show they are operating on behalf of the public interest.”
This is a pinched view of radio. There are upward of 2,000 talk stations in the country that deal with news and issues, according to Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine, and they encompass all sorts of formats from National Public Radio to urban radio to shock jocks, none of which are dominated by right wingers.
Conservative talk radio is a vibrant niche within that market, but there are many other places to go for news and opinion.
What is hard to find are liberal replicas of Rush Limbaugh, and that is due to the deepest structural imbalance of all — talent. Limbaugh and other top conservative talkers are silver-tongued, informative and — importantly — entertaining. These are qualities that can’t be conjured out of nowhere, and designated liberal-radio saviors have tended not to have the requisite talent “on loan from God” (as Limbaugh puts it).
There have been conservative failures at talk radio for the same reason. Without the right mix of substance and entertainment, a host will fail to get ratings, and with that, be yanked from the air.
“Ratings” is a word that appears only once in passing in the Center for American Progress report, because then it would have to acknowledge that conservative radio is successful exactly because it gets listeners.
The report avoids directly calling for a renewal of the constitutionally dubious Fairness Doctrine that mandated equal time for conservative and liberal opinions, although some Democratic lawmakers aren’t so circumspect.
After maintaining that the First Amendment protects nude dancing, they are ready to argue that it doesn’t quite apply to people broadcasting conservative views over the airwaves.
In our toxic contemporary politics, it’s a sign of success if you drive your opponents batty. Limbaugh might be a structural imbalance, but his critics appear simply imbalanced.
Lowry is editor of the National Review.