If you missed Stephanie on Hannity and Colmes Thursday night, here’s the beginning of the best part:
KAREN HANRETTY (filling in for Hannity): What does this exactly do for the Democratic Party as you're heading into the next election, that the liberal base is out there trying to not only stifle free speech but once again just doesn't understand the basics of the free market system?
STEPHANIE MILLER: Well, let me explain the free market system to you, Karen. My show has about -- oh, I'd say -- triple to quadruple that the right-wing show that's in
my time slot. Same thing with Ed Schultz, with Randi Rhodes, with Tom...
Stephanie fights back more, below.
HANRETTY: Throughout the country? Throughout the country you have triple their ratings? You have triple their ratings throughout the country?
MILLER: Yes.
HANRETTY: Really?
MILLER: Yes. So let's start with the fact that liberal radio is not failing. If we're going to argue the facts, let's start with what the facts actually are. You know, we're not trying to shut down right-wing radio.
I don't want the Fairness Doctrine, Karen. What I'm interested in is fairness. Why is there 90 percent conservative stations and 10 percent progressive?
HANRETTY: In the San Francisco, in Sacramento media markets -- in the San Francisco and Sacramento media markets, you're getting quadruple the ratings of Armstrong and Getty, which is the largest talk radio show in northern California?
MILLER: Yes, in fact, I just beat Armstrong and Getty in my very first ratings book in San Francisco.
HANRETTY: So then what's your gripe? What problem? I mean, if you're doing so well in the major media market.
MILLER: You know what? Karen, I'll tell you, Karen, what -- what is drawing Democratic lawmakers' attention. That is, for instance, in Ohio, which Howard Dean credited progressive talk, with being part of what helped in Ohio in 2006. They shut down every progressive radio station in Ohio.
In Columbus, where I was on, they replaced us with Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, a right-wing lineup. The ratings dropped 60 percent. They're in last place now in Columbus. You tell me if that's fair.
I won’t bother with the rebuttal from the right-wing guest Dennis Prager. You’ve already heard it throughout the so-called MSM: Just an repetitive recitation of the talking point Hanretty gives in the first sentence above.
So why is progressive radio impossible to find in Ohio and most other states? Because MSM gate-keepers are keeping it out. That is according to a guest on Stephanie’s June 27 show, Paul Woodhall of the Center for American Progress.
It’s an exhaustive report, which Stephanie sums up with "They don’t even want us to have 9% of their blankee!"
"They totally lie," Paul says of right-wingers who say progressive radio can’t make it. "There are great broadcasters, such as Stephanie Miller, who kick conservative butt all over this country."
He says:
"Gatekeepers...That’s the fundamental problem."
To listen to his interview on Stephanie Miller, go here and click the MP3 link labelled "06.27.07 Paul Woodhull of the Center for American Progress talks about their Progressive Radio Report"
And to download a PDF of Woodhall’s report, go here.
(So the right wing has turned the "Fairness Doctrine" into a bogeyman. Good! Then let’s us use it too, by saying: "If you REALLY want to defuse the Fairness Doctrine issue, then maintain and enforce the media monopoly limits. And while you are at it, how about doing something about the toothless FCC rule against intentional news falsification?" Boo, Limbaugh! We gonna get ‘cha!)