I fear new violence, provoked by something my own industry is doing.
I say so, willing to risk sounding alarmist, because I have the attention of the people responsible for what's on Talk Radio. They need to understand how some among us are being irresponsible.
And you can help.
No question, we broadcasters are challenged, vying for attention in a marketplace that gets more crowded every day. Listeners and viewers no longer need us to acquire information, or to interact with each other.
So we strain. With more cable news channels than news stories, they differentiate by flavoring what they present as news. Fox News tells it one way, MSNBC another.
How some Talk Radio showboats are playing defense lately is scary.
If only unwittingly, right-wing talkers send subliminal messages. Those who oppose the president's health care plan say "death" every time they say "death panels;" and they personalize it as "pulling the plug on granny."
The healthcare industry's need to digitize data is clear, and utterly logical. Yet Rush Limbaugh disinforms Dittoheads that our president "wants to put your medical records on Google; wants to have everybody be able to see them." He and other radio doomsayers competing for attention applaud the angriest of those who shouted-down members of Congress at town meetings.
"There is a coup going on," arm-waving Glenn Beck warns viewers and listeners. In a tone that sounds like he’s reciting Edgar Allen Poe, he tells us to stop regarding people with whom we disagree with "as having a difference of opinion. These people are revolutionaries," he declares. His exposé of communist images in Rockefeller Center architecture effectively paints a bulls-eye for would-be bombers.
I cringed when I heard my pal Sean Hannity excuse a semi-automatic gun toter apprehended across the street from a presidential appearance as exercising-his-right. Fueled by fear of a ban that never came, firearms sales have been up since the November election.
I got chills when I heard Chris Matthews use the term "dog whistle" in this context, shortly after the Holocaust Museum shootings. He refers to the over-statement some Talk Radio hosts use to cut through the cacophony, sending signals fringe ears will hear, and could take literally. I fear he’s right.
In 1995, after Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City, President Clinton warned:
"We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that by their very words that violence is acceptable."
We – inside the Talk Radio box -- think we’re just doing a show. Beck’s manner may seem, to us, like technique, calculated melodrama. But could the mock urgency of his ranting that the FCC is about to "scrub" the Internet be all-it-takes to incite the next nut?
Talk is cheap, but Free Speech is real expensive. It’s tough to discuss the First Amendment without someone saying "you can’t be ‘a little-bit pregnant;’" and someone else bringing-up "shouting ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater."
"Balance" needs to be more than a network slogan to excuse delivering audience the opposite.
With economists now in consensus that recovery has begun, my advice to Talk Radio is that recession-weary listeners will welcome something/anything positive, mitigating right-wingers’ sullen shtick.
Too many in radio seem to think Talk means talk about politics, and the resulting caricature is radio’s loss. But what’s downright dangerous is how an irrational listener could respond to code words and "teachable moments" dispensed by those dominating the on-air conversation.
You, the listener, need to take control of that conversation. Talk Radio should be two-way radio, so feel free to change the subject.
