Who listens to local talk radio: an open letter to WBAL Baltimore

Dear WBAL Programming:

I can't imagine how hard getting good talk hosts can be, especially when you lose two strong personalities at the same time, as happened earlier this year. It appears to be too hard, even for professionals like you.

Today was the straw that broke this ever-bending camel's back. Maryland is going through a huge news event. Every talk show has crowded telephone boards. People want to talk about the Special session and issues. Once again, Shari is somewhere else, talking about inanities. I wish we knew why a host of the Bruce Elliott caliber could not be brought into the daytime line-up.

The Shari Elliker show was a good Sunday afternoon break for the masses, those that weren't in front of the tube watching the big game. Maybe she needs to fill that horrible spot on Saturday morning from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Peo0le might not find her as irrelevant over coffee and breakfast. However, the daily drivel and cast of characters filling in as co-hosts has finally pushed me over to Tom Marr and WCBM. Moreover, right now, I am getting Rush's national perspective because I don't feel getting up to change the station.

Hours of Shari and her co-hosts on Britney Spears is now gone. Hours of knee jerk responses to news that are opposites of the truth in the stories is now gone. Hours of implorations to callers to tell her what is right, to disagree with her. Who thinks the audience is interested in Prince? Or Barack and Ellen? Grunting during workouts? People doing workouts are not listening to talk radio. They are listening to tunes. People at their desks, people in the shop, people behind the wheel or helm, people sitting, these are the people listening to talk radio. (I will admit to listening while wading in rivers and streams with a fishing rod.)

Chip Franklin introduced us to these personalities and he managed them well when he kept them to one segment or one day, mixed into the show. He was an interesting addition and will be missed. Too, his show was changing, and I frankly don't know what the impact (read: ratings) was, and what effect that had on his sudden departure.

It is my opinion, and only that, that talk radio during the day is listened to by people interested in what is going on NOW. Uncle Allie needed to go, although many people stopped as WBAL listeners, I am certain. However, Chip brought a new formula. He also figured out, or his producers did and he bought into, your audience wants to stay current. They want to believe in your advertising that radio does it now, television does it later and the newspapers do it tomorrow. In ten years, blogging has gone from zero to more than 70 million blogs. People want info now. Yesterday, in Maryland, the question traveling through local blogs was who will be blogging real time from Annapolis.

Big deal, you might respond. Well, I think it is. I have been a holdout in the switch among right of center political activists. Many of my more centrist friends left during the last few months, and they won't be back. Another reason it's a big deal – my office radio, the one I turn on in the morning and off at dinner, a 1985 vintage unit made in Korea and bearing the GE nameplate, has a manual tuner. That means I have to work, even if it slight work, by getting up, walking across the room, and turning the dial to make the station change.

Some years ago, I would listen to NPR in the evening for the jazz, and WCBM when working in the office or on the road. All of my tuners were manual. Now, except for the office, all of my radios have solid-state tuners, and most of them have remotes. Whatever station is tuned in the office is tuned to the other radios so I can follow discussions as I move about. For now, that will be WCBM for local news and talk. I might tune in to Dave and Ron, but being human, being lazy, that will happen less and less if the programming stays current.

I don't how big a deal it will be that this is posted as a blog, but it will give other people an opportunity to consider it, weigh in and make their decisions about what they need from a news source.

Mississippi Dem Runs Right at Barbour

The NY Times thinks a man bit a dog in Mississippi.

John Eaves, (D-MS) is the sacrificial lamb put up to challenge Haley Barbour (R-MS) in the race for Governor. The Times characterizes Barbour as "looking irritated" and "clearly annoyed" at Eaves' invocation of the Bible as a guide for social and governmental action. Apparently, the folks at the Times think this is great. Democrat runs on principles = man bites dog. They even spoke to Baltimore's own, self-proclaimed Democratic Political Science Professor Tom Schaller who seems to be defining the New Democratic Southern Strategy – deny what you party has represented for the last two hundred years and run on a Republican platform with strong roots in Judeo-Christianity.

For ten years, GOPinionPlus has argued that Republicans in the dark blue state of Maryland should be taking their message to Democratic religious strongholds, colleges and community associations, and clearly defining the consistency between the community values and the Republican Party Principles. Is anyone listening?

By the way, can anyone produce a similar statement of the Democrat Party Principles?

Dishonorable Discharge Reprise II

No sooner do I finish a comment about the proliferation of stories about Democrats public dishonesty, than I find another pattern: Commentators calling lying Democrats to task. Michael Reagan warns in his piece, People of Deceit, that the deceivers should fear columnists and talk show hosts who will hold the liar's feet to the fire. To that, I will add that there should as great a fear of the blogosphere.

Dishonorable Discharge: Democrats Soil Themselves Reprise

Catching up on some email news while listening to Sunday morning television, I came across something I wish I had when I wrote the original Dishonorable Discharge piece.

Kathryn Jean Lopez lead, "Is the truth necessary only when it suits your political agenda?" hit close to home with me. I read the piece, chuckling to myself that one of her points was how Democrats had reacted to a headline without knowing what the story was about. At least two of us are seeing a pattern.

Dishonorable Discharge: Democrats soil themselves

You have to hand it to the headline writers at The Jeffersonian. For the September 25, 2007 Party Line column, where every other week the Democrats spokesman, James Kehl, trades penning columns with the Republican Party County Chairman, Chris Cavey, they wrote Support troops not just with a yard sign. I was hooked. I wanted to know how this was going to be twisted.

The first sentence recalled the deaths in Iraq of two young men serving in the Marine Corps. The local community continuously honors these soldiers, these defenders of our freedoms, lest any of us forget what they did for all of us. I wish I could provide a link to the item, but it is not included in the newspaper's archive.

I smiled as I read about the author's memories of sacrifices and his feelings. By paragraph two, I was grinning, and paragraph three started me thinking about the Jonathan Swift solution for the Irish problem: eat the children. There were typical misstatements of fact. While asserting that the United States military is under civilian control, he concludes that each of determines when members of the military can be placed at risk. Yes. We elect the congress and congress has the sole authority to declare war, it is the President, the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, who holds the ultimate responsibility for placing soldiers at risk.

Kehl describes the Selective Service (neglecting that a Democratic Congress under a Democratic President) that once drafted citizens to serve. He becomes even fuzzier as he walks through the logic that the draft was discontinued resulting in an all volunteer military resulting in the placing of a burden being borne by a small percentage of the population. I wondered what his point was. This was unchanged during the last four administrations, two of which were headed by a Democrat. What was wrong? He did not make me wait.

With no more warning than that, Kehl was spinning into a bizarre land of make believe, and I assumed, satire. Let me share with you:

The current administration does not want a draft because that would affect a large segment of the population. Since the lives of their family members would be at risk, these citizens would pay close attention to the actions of the government. Unfortunately, people tend not to pay attention to the actions of their government if they have nothing at stake. It is easy to call a right-wing talk show or put a sign on your lawn that says "Support Our Troops, Support Our President" when other people have their lives at risk.

Mr. Kehl is certain that a draft would address a larger segment of the population. Is that because we would draft more people from more families than the volunteer effort generate? It is nonsense. He goes on to say that members of the administration do not pay attention to what our government is doing. More nonsense. The last assertion, that people putting fictitious (these signs are a figment of his imagination) signs up will exempt your loved ones from risk, is part of what convinced me that this was a satire by Kehl. Why would he write a column advancing Republicans or the President? I read on.

Kehl went into the party screed about the unjust and immoral invasion of Iraq before stating, "It has not protected our country from terrorists. " he ended the paragraph with, " Why should terrorists come to America to kill Americans when all they have to do is go to Iraq." All right, I admit that I was seeing this as more than a jest. It was more untruth masquerading as truth given the credibility of being a regular column in a twice per week newspaper. Terrorists successfully attacked on our soil at the beginning of the Clinton Administration and at the beginning of the Bush Administration. They have tried to attack unarmed, non-combatant civilians here at home but have been thwarted. Kehl wants us to believe that terrorists would rather attack armed soldiers in Iraq than attack civilians. Kehl went from humorous to dishonest here.

The close to Kehl's column went back to the military members and families he started with. He then called all Americans who disagree with his anti-war stance irresponsible. People who listen to talk radio hosts without family members serving in Iraq are irresponsible for not acknowledging that this war is not a "necessary part of the war on terror".

So what, you might ask. Different strokes for different folks, right? The September 27, 2007 Jeffersonian put the Kehl commentary in perspective Two mothers honor fallen sons. On the front page, above the fold, a picture of two smiling women, each holding a two-foot by three-foot photograph of their son, one of them in country with an Iraqi youth and the other hugging his wife of three weeks, both men in uniform. It was the same two boys being lamented in the anti-war column from the week before. However, this article was far different from Kehl's spin.

These mothers miss their sons dearly. They would do anything to have them back, safe, in the family home. They were celebrating the lives their sons had lived. They were also talking about the upcoming scholarship fundraiser (October 12, 2007, 7:30 to 11:30 PM, Martin's Valley Mansion, 594 Cranbrook Road, Cockeyesville, MD Call (410) 473-4657 for tickets or to contribute). Please forgive me lengthy quote from the article (page A6, Night for sharing memories, which, unfortunately is not available online at this writing.

Lance Cpl. [Norm] Anderson and Cpl. [Josh] Snyder said their presence in Iraq deterred terrorist attacks in America. Today, their families say the United States should not withdraw its forces prematurely.

"To Josh, our country was like our family farm. He would do anything for it," Doris Snyder said. "He said that he'd rather fight the enemy over there than over here."

The mothers, who keep in touch with many of their sons' friends from Hereford [High School] as well as Marines from their units, recently broadened the scope of the Anderson-Snyder Memorial Fund to include military families in need.

Previously, money went solely to scholarships – five, totaling $6,000, so far – for Hereford High School graduates.

"We think the boys would want us to help their family – the Marine family," Snyder said. "We haven't given any money to any families yet, but we'd like to."

Robyn Anderson had the last word in the article, "The next time you see a soldier in uniform, just walk up and say 'Thank you.' Nothing would have made Norm and Josh happier."

James Kehl invoked the images of Norm and Josh in his anti-war, anti-Bush administration, anti-Republican diatribe that was factually inaccurate, and attempted to use those who disagree with him, but cannot speak for themselves to support his attacks. Norm and Josh have far more credibility here than does Kehl. The Democrats who hold Kehl out as their spokesperson are smeared with the filth that he wrote. For the sake of civil discourse, I pray that thinking Democrats find a new columnist. Until then, thinking people will read him critically and make decisions about whom and what deserves their support and who and what does not.