Friday, July 25, 2008

Starvation Diet?

The late, great, Quentin Crisp observed, "To an egomaniac, fair share of anything is always starvation diet."

Some left-wing true believers around Rochester are upset over the impending format change at radio station WROC 950 AM.   The station now carries liberal-oriented programming from the failing "Air America" effort, and proposes to change to sports coverage by next week.   (Do we really need two sports stations in Rochester?)

What's a truly progressive Rochesterian to do?

If WROC goes, all that's left are CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Democrat and Chronicle, the Messenger-Post papers in all the local towns and the main national news magazines.

For decades in this country the Left was used to having the entire media loaf.   Now they're down to 95% of the loaf -- and it's just not fair!

However, to those who prefer "President" Castro to President Bush (we don't have time for either), take heart.   You can still hear Air America on WWKB 1520 AM out of Buffalo.
 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an avid sports fan, I have to tell you we definitely need 2 sports stations in Rochester. The ESPN Radio stations are typically the most successful in other media markets and although they are currently affiliated with 1280, Mike & Mike in the Morning is cut off at 9 p.m. for the unbelievably awful John DiTullio. That guy has a face for radio and a voice for silent movies. And I'm not even going to get started on Bob Matthews.

Anyway, I'm a huge fan of this blog so keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

considering the media is owned and run by giant conservative corporations, i hardly think that the 'left' has had 100% of the loaf at any time. also, radio is dead, so who cares about sports radio, political talk shows or old what's his face with the 'rest of the story?'

Philbrick said...

Sorry, Anonymous, but we're not buying it.

First, just because corporations are in the business of making money doesn't mean they are politically conservative, or act to promote conservative ideals.

But even if they were, what matters in looking at the political orientation of the media are things like:

1. Their output and how they slant their stories;

2. The information that's newsworthy but that they omit, because it doesn't fit with the liberal story line. the Democrat and Chronicle is notorious for this, examples of which we've provided numerous times;

3. Surveys of political leanings of the employees of those "conservative" corporations who report and edit the news;

4. Surveys of the political party registration of those who report and edit the news;

5. Data on contributions to candidates for office from the people who report and edit the news.

As to radio being "dead:" if it were, why is the Left so worried about the popularity of conservative radio talkers, to the point of pushing to reinstate a gag rule with the Orwellian name "the Fairness Doctrine."

Air America may be dying, as have the shows of other liberal talkers. Mario Cuomo (who's mid-1990's attempt at radio I liked and listened to) is but one example. This fact merely underscores the prevailing Left orientation of most of the media. Those on the Left hear what they want to hear from all the news sources cited in our posting. They don't have to have recourse to radio as the only trustworthy medium.

The vast range of ordinary Americans, on the other hand, find this mostly only in radio. Radio is the only place where that market can go, and I think it explains why Right-talk is commercially successful and Left-talk isn't.

Rush Limbaugh just marked his 20th year of commercial radio success with a new contract at $45 million per year for the next 8 years, all because of the size of his audience . (Not because a "conservative" corporation is willing to throw away $400 million to push its point of view.)

That doesn't sound like a "dead" medium to me.