My first encounter with the talk radio phenomena was in 1996 while taking a cross country automobile trip with my favorite companion -- my wife.
Our idea was to merge a first visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for either of us with a search for the "real"
Driving along US 2 in a family van equipped with an AM / FM receiver, it became tough to stay in touch with the outside world as the highway left the last “big” city in upper Michigan and wound toward Duluth.
As the population density shrank, the towns got farther and farther apart, and my wife’s search of the dial looking for any news from the path ahead, would catch the edge of a 1000-watt AM station offering a selection among a preachy woman's voice talking about morality and responsibility, or a loud man's lofty language expressing what was causing "the problems" in our society, or an atonal preacher urging us to follow the Bible, or country music.
Since I’m not fond of country music, and can only take the preacher until he tells me he's the only one who knows how Jesus wants me to live my life, the option was to hear out the preachy woman and the loud man while waiting for news and weather at the next time check or travel in silence without the outside information we sought.
It turned out to be a daily dose of Dr. Laura and then Rush, or Rush and then Dr. Laura marching one behind the other on a schedule between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays. The only variety was as one station faded and a new one encountered, we may get an instant rerun of the broadcast from the last zone.
It seemed as though every station manager used Rush and Dr. Laura interchangeably to fill those six hours regardless of the time zone.
As we focused more on the background sound while we drove across the sameness of
Fancying myself one during the
"Liberal" was "duped by the media" (I could separate information from manipulation), pro-homosexual (I was ambivalent as long as I wasn't invited to participate), pro-government (not during Vietnam anyway), anti-gun (I'm not fond, but see a use in some instances particularly as we traversed the outback of Montana), anti-individual (I felt free and easy and didn't really care about another being such so long as they didn't interfere with my freeness and easiness), against religion (I thought myself religious), pro-abortion (I wasn't), anti-family (I was taking a trip with my wife because we enjoyed each other's company), unwilling to take responsibility for mistakes (well, I knew we were on our own if something went wrong during the trip), and generally anti-American (I was looking for a broader perspective of the real America!).
How could the speakers get it so wrong?
Having been trained in communications and the media, I guessed the region’s demographics along the Canadian border was pretty much people seeking reinforcement of their isolated beliefs.
Logic didn't matter so long as they were convinced the speaker was "with" them.
It drew listeners to justify ad time on the prairies, the "business" behind commercial radio no matter where broadcast.
So, what became more interesting than the lecturing was the types of callers who would show up on the airwaves to be abused by the hosts. I couldn't figure whether they were seeing their 15-minutes of fame, or were so removed from reality that they didn't realize they were being used. The debate was authoritarian – you’re either with me or wrong.
And, for the most part, the callers left the impression they’d join up with the radio voiced “debater.”It was then I began to question the crutch – the shortened description of the “problem” which always seemed to creep into the answer. Dr. Laura’s “liberal” was different from Rush’s, but in either instance, its application was ruining whatever semblance of order the microphone owners urged on their listeners between commercial breaks.
Were we children, the “logic” associated with using the term was the same which kept us from looking beneath the bed for fear of finding the “boogie man.”
Having been born and raised and largely oriented to a bigger metropolitan region than I encountered around Grand Forks, Glasgow, Kalispell, Sandpoint, Coeur d’ Alene and Spokane, I thought the phenomena unique to relatively small towns – until we hit Seattle, where we’d still encounter the voices while surfing through the (thankfully) broader variety of entertainment and information (KIRO -- 710 became the regional favorite).
The “boogie man” shtick was a staple no matter what the demographic.
But wait, before those who don’t like a Rush, or a Dr. Laura, or an O'Reilly begin nodding wisely about those talkers' flaccid logic, apply the same “boogie man” definition to the terms in the title used by lesser known radio harranguers who justify their ad time with a "different" perspective.
The single word philosophies are staples in discussion whether you live where the vote was red or blue or the philosophy tends toward right of left.
Many live in a sound bite society where taking the time to think about the ideas behind the terms isn’t as easy as latching on emotionally to a term and following where the pundits who throw it out lead us. We don’t have time to discuss, so, instead, we shout terms at each other in “debate.”
And, every time we shout one of those terms we’re asserting “my boogie man is scarier than your boogie man” and limiting debate to how frequently and loudly we can shout our selected boogie man name.
All it does is herd us behind the few who coin the terms – the one’s who we allow to play us for saps.
jim
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