"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Winston Churchill
I bring you the pants.
The right has seized on the idea that Rush Limbaugh's ratings have doubled, as reported by the Washington Post, to prove that the Democrats' Limbaugh strategy is backfiring. Even if the ratings canard were true, it would prove no such thing. The fact is that it's not true, as my reporting, and a glance at the WaPo article, make clear.
In the lede to the WaPo story, the author makes a very specific claim:
By one measure, Rush Limbaugh is a clear winner this week: His ratings have nearly doubled since his feud with the White House burst into the media limelight.
So far, so good. This should be easy to verify, right? From my site, Daily Dose:
This is a specific, measurable claim. The word "ratings" is not some kind of pliable, esoteric concept. It refers to a specific type of measurement. So, what ratings wasKurtz using? Arbitron? Nielsen? Zagat?
"The people who love him are a very small segment of the public," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, whose research indicates that Limbaugh's weekly audience has spiked from 14.2 million to about 25 million since the controversy escalated. "A lot of people still think he's a shock jock, a hatemonger (ed. where'd they get an idea like that?), a right-wing radical, or hold his personal baggage against him."
Not content with the fact that the article has already proven the "ratings" claim false, I contacted the WaPo source, Michael Harrison. You can see the
full text of our exchanges here, but to summarize, I gave him a chance to say that his data was the same thing as ratings, or even that it was equivalent, and
he would not.
Talkers Magazine's Michael Harrison has responded to my request for comment. You can seethe whole thing at AOL, but here's the money quote:
Keep in mind, I was only referring to Limbaugh's numbers this past week during the extraordinary media frenzy about him and that Talkers magazine is not in the business of selling ratings. They are only our thumbnail estimates based upon our contacts in the field, tracking of Arbitron estimates and understanding of the business. We make no claims as to "scientific" accuracy.
This is exactly what I'm saying, Harrison never represented this figure to Kurtz as "ratings" data.WaPo has a story up today that says that estimating Rush's actual audience size is damn near impossible, even mentioning Kurtz's story, but with no retraction. Just because radio ratings suck doesn't mean you can call a guesstimate "ratings."
Update 2: Harrison responds to my followup question, "To clarify, is it safe to say that the information you gave to Kurtz were not "ratings," and were not arrived at in the same way that ratings are?"
Again,full text is at AOL, but he's confirming that these are not ratings:
Yes, they are not "ratings" per se (as in Neilson or Arbitron). They are
Talkers magazine's estimates of audience figures based upon our interpretation
Granted, it is logical to assume that the publicity would cause a spike in Rush's listenership, but that's a good thing for the Democrats. It's good for Rush, too, but what can you do? The Republicans, despite their slavish devotion to Limbaugh, are clear losers here.
Even if Rush tripled his audience, to about 45 million, he would simply be adding to the choir, reaching people who already agree with him. But for the Democrats, the chance for independents and moderates to hear the hateful rhetorical bombs that Rush periodically throws to get attention, while tying him to the supplicated GOP, is pure gold. Let Limbaugh attract dittoheads and repel in-play voters all he wants.
The right's problem here is that they really think that the more people get to know Rush, the more they'll like him. That's only true of certain people, and the left ain't ever getting them.