Several weeks ago, my wife and I were given a prime lesson why you shouldn’t listen to talk radio.
It took some persuading, but I got her to join me for a night out to sit in on a public forum with five talk radio hosts in the Wisconsin market. The “discussion” was designed and promoted as addressing two key issues: 1) How the political right in the U.S. will evolve and use talk radio as a positive force now that it has the key levers of power nationally, and 2) how the political left can use talk radio to engage listeners because it has not done so effectively for the most part.
Both topics peaked my curiosity. I wanted to hear what was said.
We got there early. The place held about 170 people. Ultimately, people filled up to about a third of the seats. Kind of a sad statement about our civic involvement.
There were two moderators and five panelists – three from the political right and two from the political left. After introductions, the verbal jousting began.
We did not sign up for that. We came to hear a civic discussion wrapped around issues so both sides could propose and walk away with constructive solutions. Instead, we got ramblings, ripping unsubstantiated statements, yelling, talking over the other panelists and long boring monologues that allowed the speaker to dominate the proceedings with no rebuttals.
It was a sad statement about talk radio. My wife and I left early. We agreed on the drive home that it was a classic reason NOT to listen to talk radio.
There are many reasons to eliminate talk radio from your diet. Here are a few: 1) Fundamentally, it is designed to make you angry by the announcer yelling, raising his voice and use choice adjectives and examples designed to boil your blood. Why would people CHOOSE to make themselves angry? I don’t get it.
2) The person who hosts a talk radio show basically has carte blanche to say whatever the heck he or she wants. There are no ombudsmen on the shows. No one is fact checking. That allows someone with an agenda to head off in any direction s/he wishes with nothing reining them in.
3) Episodes degenerate. They may start on topic (like the forum we attended did), but then quickly devolve into shouting matches, finger pointing and topics no one cares about.
4) If you continue listening to a show, the same tired arguments come up over and over. New material isn’t introduced. You can reinforce your views or challenge your views. You can listen to someone scream over the air who completely tracks your views and get excited in your car as you listen, but I’ll bet most people don’t keep listening when a different speaker raises another point-of-view dramatically counter to your own.
That night on the east side of Milwaukee, the audience was given a HUGE dose of all those negatives, in particular the quick degeneration from a civil discussion to a shouting match on an issue not featured – voter registration. “We didn’t sign up for this,” I said to my wife.
Soon thereafter, we got up and left, and the show wasn’t even half over. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was saddened by the entire affair.
It demonstrated exactly why you SHOULDN’T listen to talk radio. And why I don’t.
The radio hosts get so used to saying whatever the heck they want for as long as they want that they don’t know how to check themselves. And no one else checks them, so the rant goes on.
As we drove home, I wondered how those on the panel relate to their spouses or others in their lives outside of work. Do they adopt the same type of posturing used on the air? I hope not.
It took some persuading, but I got her to join me for a night out to sit in on a public forum with five talk radio hosts in the Wisconsin market. The “discussion” was designed and promoted as addressing two key issues: 1) How the political right in the U.S. will evolve and use talk radio as a positive force now that it has the key levers of power nationally, and 2) how the political left can use talk radio to engage listeners because it has not done so effectively for the most part.
Both topics peaked my curiosity. I wanted to hear what was said.
We got there early. The place held about 170 people. Ultimately, people filled up to about a third of the seats. Kind of a sad statement about our civic involvement.
There were two moderators and five panelists – three from the political right and two from the political left. After introductions, the verbal jousting began.
We did not sign up for that. We came to hear a civic discussion wrapped around issues so both sides could propose and walk away with constructive solutions. Instead, we got ramblings, ripping unsubstantiated statements, yelling, talking over the other panelists and long boring monologues that allowed the speaker to dominate the proceedings with no rebuttals.
It was a sad statement about talk radio. My wife and I left early. We agreed on the drive home that it was a classic reason NOT to listen to talk radio.
There are many reasons to eliminate talk radio from your diet. Here are a few: 1) Fundamentally, it is designed to make you angry by the announcer yelling, raising his voice and use choice adjectives and examples designed to boil your blood. Why would people CHOOSE to make themselves angry? I don’t get it.
2) The person who hosts a talk radio show basically has carte blanche to say whatever the heck he or she wants. There are no ombudsmen on the shows. No one is fact checking. That allows someone with an agenda to head off in any direction s/he wishes with nothing reining them in.
3) Episodes degenerate. They may start on topic (like the forum we attended did), but then quickly devolve into shouting matches, finger pointing and topics no one cares about.
4) If you continue listening to a show, the same tired arguments come up over and over. New material isn’t introduced. You can reinforce your views or challenge your views. You can listen to someone scream over the air who completely tracks your views and get excited in your car as you listen, but I’ll bet most people don’t keep listening when a different speaker raises another point-of-view dramatically counter to your own.
That night on the east side of Milwaukee, the audience was given a HUGE dose of all those negatives, in particular the quick degeneration from a civil discussion to a shouting match on an issue not featured – voter registration. “We didn’t sign up for this,” I said to my wife.
Soon thereafter, we got up and left, and the show wasn’t even half over. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was saddened by the entire affair.
It demonstrated exactly why you SHOULDN’T listen to talk radio. And why I don’t.
The radio hosts get so used to saying whatever the heck they want for as long as they want that they don’t know how to check themselves. And no one else checks them, so the rant goes on.
As we drove home, I wondered how those on the panel relate to their spouses or others in their lives outside of work. Do they adopt the same type of posturing used on the air? I hope not.