WTMJ, WISN In Violation Of Federal Law

Last year, I introduced you to Sue Wilson, a one-woman dynamo leading the charge for us to reclaim our airwaves. She came to Wisconsin and showed us how it was done with the airing of her documentary Broadcast Blues. The show was a real eye opener and very informative, especially when it came to the Zapple Doctrine:

What remains unknown about yesterday's announcement from the Chairman is just how far this repeal goes. While certain corollaries of the Doctrine - including the political editorializing and personal attack rules - have been specifically mentioned in press reports as being repealed, the one vestige of the doctrine that potentially has some vitality - the Zapple Doctrine compelling a station to provide time to the supporters of one candidate if the station provides time to the supporters of another candidate in a political race, has never specifically been abolished, and is not mentioned in the Chairman's statement. Zapple, also known as "quasi-equal opportunities", has been argued in in various recent controversies, including in connection with the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry, when Kerry supporters claimed that they should get equal time to respond should certain television stations air the anti-Kerry Swift Boat "documentary." We have written about Zapple many times (see, for instance, here, in connection with the Citizens United decision). What would be beneficial to broadcasters would be a determination as to whether Zapple has any remaining vitality, as some have felt that this doctrine is justified independent of the Fairness Doctrine. Perhaps that clarification will come when the full text of the FCC action is released.

Well, let me tell you, that was no the end of Sue Wilson's involvement with Wisconsin or her fight to reclaim the airwaves for the people.

Sue has been helping a group of us monitor the airwaves here in Milwaukee. On Tuesday, she will be holding a press conference regarding our findings. Sue writes about it here, and here is most of it:

Any time progressives try to get their views out over the radio, Conservative Talkers squawk that they are jeopardizing their rights of Free Speech. I agree radio talkers have their rights. But so do We the People, and it is time we stand up for them. Right now. Especially in the middle of an election like the Walker recall, where the law says BOTH major politcal party supporters are entitled to comparable airtime.

Most people don't know that we have special rights when it comes to local radio and TV, but we do. Despite what Big corporate media tells us again and again, Broadcasting operates under unique rules designed to protect the public interest. Let me explain why Broadcasting enjoys special treatment in the name of the public.

Newspapers are private enterprise: anyone with enough capital can start a newspaper and write what they will. Cable TV is also private enterprise: when people write a check to Comcast or Direct TV, they pay private contractors, via cable or satellite, to bring programs from Playboy to Disney into their homes.

But broadcasting, local radio and TV, is a public/private partnership: the public owns the airwaves needed for transmission; private business own the buildings, equipment, etc. needed to broadcast programming. When private business goes into broadcasting, it makes a deal with the public: a free license from the Federal Communication Commission - if it agrees to "serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity."

Broadcasting also differs from newspapers and cable in that the number of frequencies available in one community are few, so only a limited number of local stations are possible. Physical scarcity is the foundation of all broadcast law.

Then there's the concept of "private censorship." Because of the physical scarcity of frequencies, the Courts say big corporations who are licensed to broadcast over our airwaves have no right to prevent people of the community access to being heard on the radio.

There are two radio markets in the U.S. I've been closely watching which highlight these concepts of physical scarcity and private censorship. One is Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where five local Conservative Talk Radio hosts dominate 100,000 watts of radio power, (and to whom Republicans like Alberta Darling credit their political victories.)

The other is my adopted hometown, Sacramento, where Clear Channel Communications broadcasts about 190 hours per week of national one-sided political talk over three giant stations, KFBK-AM, KGBY-FM and AMFM Holding's KSTE-AM Clear Channel management disputed that number at a recent meeting with Media Action Center, Sacramento Media Group, and Occupy Sacramento. But (now former) Clear Channel GM Jeff Holden told us he is very comfortable airing only one-sided political talk on three giant stations - during an election year.

But what Holden may or may not have known is that, in the 60 days prior to an election, if broadcasters sell or give time to one major political party candidate or its supporters, they must, by law, offer comparable time to the opposing major political party candidate or its supporters. (See Section 315a of the Communications Act and the Zapple Doctrine.)

The Media Action Center has been monitoring talk radio stations owned by Clear Channel and Journal Communications in Milwaukee since May 9th, the first day of the Walker/Barrett campaign in Wisconsin. We will release detailed results of that monitoring May 22nd, but suffice it to say that supporters of one major political party are getting short shrift, and they have been complaining to the Talk stations demanding equal time, and they will soon be complaining – loudly – to the Federal Communications Commission to immediately enforce comparable time laws under Zapple. (The FCC is the law enforcement agency on broadcasting issues.)

But those Talk Radio giants are also violating the First Amendment rights of supporters of candidates whom they are not allowed to be heard in the midst of the election. "Private censorship" comes down to a matter of access, says the Supreme Court of the United States.

In Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, 1969, the Supreme Court made two key rulings: "the First Amendment is relevant to broadcasting, but it is the right of the viewer and listener, not the broadcaster, which is paramount." And, “the First Amendment does not protect private censorship by broadcasters who are licensed by the Government to use a scarce resource which is denied to others.”

The giants have argued against this in court, but to no avail. In 2011, Clear Channel lawyers argued that given the internet, the concept of physical scarcity was no longer needed. The U.S.Third Circuit Court of Appeals shot them down: "The abundance of non-broadcast media does not render the broadcast spectrum any less scarce. The Supreme Court's justification for the scarcity doctrine remains as true today as it was in 2004 --- indeed, in 1975 --- many more people would like to access the [broadcast spectrum] than can be accommodated."

The imbalance we are seeing on the publicly owned airwaves in Milwaukee and Sacramento and elsewhere proves that broadcasters are stamping out the First Amendment rights of liberals and the rest of us, not the other way around, as right wing talkers in every corner of the country would have us believe. Yes, it is censorship for the government to tell hosts what they may or may not say. But when Clear Channel and other radio license holders put one political point of view on our public airwaves to the exclusion of all others, that is private censorship, and lucky for us and the people of Wisconsin, in the 60 days before an an election, that is illegal.

While we're reclaiming Wisconsin, let's reclaim it all back, including our airwaves!

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

A Message From Sue Wilson

From the inbox:

Greetings!

Harry and I so enjoyed meeting you in Wisconsin, and look forward to continuing the very important work of making Wisconsin's broadcast airwaves represent all the people of your state, not just a few.

If you haven't done so already, please fill out the Broadcasters' Public Interest Survey at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OurPublicAirwaves .

Once we've gathered enough data, we can put together an action plan for your specific town.

Also, check out this website, it is a great fun way for us to have a continuing conversation about Wisconsin media issues. But we need volunteers to keep it running. It is a very simple task, we just need people who will agree to keep the page open on their computers for a few hours a day. You don't even need to type anything, just open the page and keep it open, and the program will allow us all to weigh in. If you are interested, please let me know.

If you signed up to be a team leader, or if you're just willing to work on a team, here are the tasks we need to do. Let us know what city you live in and which tasks appeal to you:

- Organizing meetings to determine your area's broadcasting problems/needs.

- Meeting with station management to discuss those needs.

- Monitoring radio or TV programs to measure who well broadcasters are responding to your requests.

- Writing reports about the results of monitoring

- Publicizing reports to the local media and the FCC

Also! If any of you are involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests, please talk about Broadcast reform. The NYC declaration says that Wall Street "purposely keeps people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media." They are right, but we know what to do about it, and we must share that wisdom. If you can, see if local Occupy Madison or other rallies will show Broadcast Blues to their crowds.

THANK YOU ALL so much. Together, we are taking our media back!

In Unity,

~Sue

Jessica McBride takes on talk radio, defends public workers

Jessica McBride, who once aspired to talk radio fame and fortune, wants to know what's the matter with Tommy Thompson? He's running into a lot of flak from conservatives, and McBride, who once worshiped at the feet of Charlie Sykes, now says:

Thompson has run into the “new Republican party,” inspired by a tea party hold-theline ethos, a zero-tax-levy governor, and a talkradio machine that demands absolute fealty to a message. Or else.

She defends Tommy's spending, and even says:

Tommy is also out of step with current conservative dogma because he grew the size of the state work force. In other words, he didn’t ascribe to the “public workers are greedy people at the trough” rhetoric. Well, those jobs employed people and put them to work, so they could put their money back into the economy. (Now Republicans tout stimulus job creation in Rick Perry’s Texas). Scott Walker didn’t lay a bunch of people off, either. I am sure Tommy needed some more workers in the prison system because he was so tough on crime. Remember truth in sentencing and all that?

Of course, her husband was a state employee for quite awhile, and she still is. That tends to make one a little more empathetic.

If you must, read it here.

Is Talk Radio Really That Popular?

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this one comes via my buddy, Shaina:

If you actually sit down and compare audience pull and equalize the wattage of the stations, progressive media can easily go toe to toe with the right wing shows.  They just don't have the backing of the money of corporate media.  Another reason why we need to take back our airwaves!

Reclaiming Wisconsin's Airwaves

Several years ago, an unknown blogger using the pseudonym "Template" created Whallah!  The purpose of this blog at that time was to be a foil to then squawk radio host Jessica McBride.  Soon after McBride was fired by WTMJ, which used a racially charged gaffe as an excuse, but really just wanted to cut corners and bring in the cheaper syndicated squawkers Dennis Miller and the always offensive Michael Savage.

At that time, Whallah! expanded to take on all of the local right wing squawkers, from Charlie "Mr. Woodhouse" Sykes to Mark "Wetback" Belling to the now departed but not missed Republican regurgitst Patrick McIlheran of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel infamy.

But this is just one little blog. It can do so much.

The powerhouses such at WTMJ-620 and ClearChannel's WISN-1130, not to mention other stations around the state are still spewing their one-sided message in order to support Republican/Teahadist causes and agendas.

So how the hell did this happen?

Let me introduce you to my new friend, Sue Wilson, who has more than a passing familiarity with talk radio.

Sue has made a movie about this (which is probably why she is willing to come to Wisconsin and get us started) but her ideas have sound basis and reflect much of what #wiunion has done in the past several months on its own.  To describe how we got here and her plan on how to help us, I would refer the gentle reader to her post (which is unfortunately on Huffington Post - Side word to Sue: Daily Kos, dear, Daily Kos).  Here is a couple of key excerpts:

That's not to say the demise of the Fairness Doctrine did not have an adverse effect. I produced public affairs programming under that rule at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, and found it very workable. I did not have to tell both sides of the story, I just had to try to do so. I also witnessed how, once it was abolished, TV programs that covered the local community just disappeared. And on the radio side, once the Fairness Doctrine went away, there is little question that Rush Limbaugh went hard right on a national microphone, attacking Democrats and anyone else who gets in the way of his pro-corporate right wing agenda.

Copycats soon moved in, creating an industry of right wing propagandists. In 90 percent of radio programming today, no real debate is allowed (unless a brave or committed few sneak past the microphone hoarders' screeners.)

But the Fairness Doctrine wasn't perfect. Part of the problem was it employed a top down approach, with Big Daddy Government putting broadcasters in the untenable position of being liable for lawsuits even over content in comedy programs. (CBS was sued under the Fairness Doctrine when the Norman Lear character Maude had an abortion in the TV show of the same name; opponents sued, saying CBS must do other shows where women did not have an abortion.) Rather than face such reprise, some broadcasters chose not to cover any controversial issues at all, which many argue chilled debate rather than engendered it.

In August, 2011, the final nail has been pounded into the coffin of the Fairness Doctrine.

Sue goes on to point out that the Federal Appeals Court made a clear and cut ruling that the airwaves, despite the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, are clearly the public's airwaves. They belong to us, not to the Koch Brothers or to Journal Broadcasting. We only let them use them, via the government. If they violate the public interest in using the airwaves, we, the people, can and must correct that, as they did in Sacramento:

This is not to say the only way to get broadcasters to serve the public interest is by filing legal challenges to their licenses. The Sacramento Media Group, affiliated with Common Cause, has successfully employed a model of knocking on TV stations' doors, asking for five minutes of daily political coverage on TV during election season. It took meetings with station management making that request, monitoring stations' coverage for three election cycles, writing several reports and releasing them to local newspapers (which caused the stations considerable embarrassment.) But today, SMG has found success. Their next goal is to ask local Talk radio stations for balanced political coverage, again during election seasons.


At the end of the day, the publicly owned airwaves are about public safety, about community and about ensuring First Amendment rights for everyone in the public square of broadcasting. Luckily, the Supreme Court is on our side.

So, what does this have to do with any of us? Sue answers that question too:

That's the First Amendment Right of all the viewers and listeners, not the just ones who listen to the most profitable formats for corporations.
There is much energy around restoring the Public into the Public Interest. A grassroots movement started earlier this year in Florida, when the UU Legislative Ministry supported an 11 city media reform tour featuring Broadcast Blues.

But it is really finding its legs next month with the 2011 Wisconsin Media Reform Tour featuring Broadcast Blues. (Broadcast Blues is the 2009 documentary film I made which delves into issues of public interest obligations of broadcasters.) Thanks to the organizing efforts of local folks, I'll be traveling to eight cities in Wisconsin, showing the film, then surveying citizens as to their specific public interest needs. Next, we'll work on how to approach their local broadcasters, not just by email, but with personal visits, and convey to the broadcasters what they need. In some cases, friendly visits will get great results: heck, the manager of the station could be somebody you went to high school with. But other times, protests, boycotts, maybe even legal petitions to deny the stations' licenses may need to be filed.

We'll do whatever it takes to restore the public -- all the public -- into the public interest obligations of broadcasters.

But unlike the Fairness Doctrine, this is a bottom up approach. This is "We the People" holding both broadcasters -- and the FCC accountable to us. We are taking back that which we already own: our public airwaves.

Stay tuned as we get closer. We will need to form teams to take on not only Milwaukee's broadcasters, but in cities all over the state, from Madison to Wausau to Green Bay. The more hands that we have on board, the easier and the faster we can correct this problem which has plagued us for far too long.

Just as we are taking back our state, we need to take back our airwaves.

Are you with us?

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

What Does WISGOP, Squawk Radio and Right Wing Bloggers All Have In Common?

The answer is that their positions are so indefensible that their only line of argument anymore is name-calling, as exemplified in this mass email from WISGOP:

You know that squawkers like Sykes and the echo chamber will be using these names until election day and beyond as they lick their wounds.  

After all, original thought has never been their strong suit.

The Biggest Shtick In The State

Monday morning, Charlie Sykes spent part of his squawk show trying to take credit for the Prosser "mandate" of a victory. (Note to Charlie: 0.49% is far from a mandate. It's more like a mistake.)

Illy-T does the yeoman's work of breaking down just what influence Sykes might have had on the race:

What is sad, though, is Sykes's mincing triumphalism, because what he doesn't tell you is that if his special theory has validity, then the dissembling shouter managed to impede Justice Prosser's progress in almost every single one of the Wisconsin counties he mentions, by:

Milwaukee: 11 points
Racine: 6 points
Waukesha: 8 points
Washington: 5 points
Ozaukee: 9 points
Dodge: 11 points
Fond Du Lac: 11 points
Jefferson: 10 points
Walworth: 4 points

That's how much Prosser conceded, between the general election on April 5 and the primary election on February 15, which is when Sykes commenced his 50K-watt campaign of ludicrous propagandas

Can you imagine that? If the election was even just a week longer, Sykes might have managed to give the race to JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Sykes' delusions of grandeur isn't anything new though.  When she was still an overt political player, Jessica McBride had the same syndrome.

Sykes Owes An Apologies To Mrs. Johnson and Chris Abele

This morning, Charlie Sykes was ripping into Chris Abele (read as Jeff Stone, the Republicans' token sacrificial lamb, is in deep trouble).  He compared Abele's multimillionaire status to that of Ron Johnson's multimillionaire status.

Sykes stated that Ron Johnson earned his money, while Chris Abele mooched for his.

I would hardly call having one's father pass away as "mooching."  But that shows what an insensitive and tactless boor Sykes really is  Either way, he should apologize to Abele for mocking his father's death.

Secondly, he owes and apology to Ron Johnson's wife, Jane.  I'm sure that Mrs. Johnson is a lovely woman whom the Senator loves very much, and that marrying her to get his millions of dollars was no work at all.

So You Don't Have To

As the header of this site says, we are committed to monitoring of the local right-wing media and exposing their lies, hypocrisies and foibles, so you don't have to.


In that sense, here is what you will hear tomorrow, whether you listen to Charlie Sykes, Vicki McKenna, James T. Harris, Jeff Wagner, Jay Weber, Mark Belling, or any of the other squawkers:


On President Obama's State of the Union address:  He LIED! He's a socialist! His math is fuzzy! His numbers are wrong! He said it before and LIED then too!  He wants to spend more! He wants to tax you into the poor house!  He's a communist! He's not from this country!  He's so pompous! 


On Senator Paul Ryan's rebuttal:  Brilliant! Genius! He nailed it! A rising star!  He really gets it! A TRUE American! God Bless Paul Ryan! Right on!


On Representative Michele Bachmann's rebuttal:


So now, I just gave us all the day off from talk radio tomorrow.  Instead of listening to a Chicken Little squawking, go out and listen to a real bird singing.  


Enjoy!


PS: If you do decide to put yourself through the torment of listening to them, remember the other part of our header:  Great moment in radio history--Charlie Sykes: "My evidence...Absolutely none!"

Harris Gets Beat Like By A Drum

It appears that James T. Harris doesn't have all that much popularity, as evidenced by this piece from The Milwaukee Drum:

However, I cannot respect the means by which he goes about his business. I’ve waited and waited for the jester to someday turn into the master of ceremony of Black Conservative Talk… but the clock turned to midnight and with it my Maybach turned back to my bus pass .

I peep his Facebook page every other week or so and you know what? It’s the same tired anti-Obama this, Obama hates America, the Obamas are socialists, Chocolate Jesus that, blah blah blah. His commentary (written/oral) is the stuff made of a high school debate team gone bad. What’s truly disappointing is that (I believe) he is a smart man and could be taken serious in the pundit game if he applied skill and savvy not sketch comedy.

If he REALLY HAD THE GOODS, JTH would be to Black Conservative Talk what John Coltrane was with a saxaphone… pure genius and a pide pieper leading people away from the sure death of ignorance and base political diatribe. Yet he settles for juvenile and elementary conversation in the shallow end of the pool. What will be his relevance when President Obama is no longer in the Oval Office? Will Fox News call the “Chocolate Henny Penny” then?

If nothing else, the picture they use is worth the click over.

Abnormal Is The New Normal?

After pointing out the irresponsible rhetoric that comes from talk radio and Faux News, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been relentlessly attacked by the members of talk radio and their followers for pointing out this fact.

"Loughner was a liberal," some would claim, while others would just call him mentally ill. Apparently, defending their hate is easier than honest introspection.

OK, let's say we give them Loughner. There is always Jim David Adkisson who shot up the Unitarian Church in Tennessee after getting repeated doses of the vitriol and hate speech served up by Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

If they think that is just one example, Blogging Blue posted, last summer, that Adkisson was just one in a string of crazies who lap at talk radio's and Faux News' hate juice.

Digby thinks that this denial of reality by the right and the populace in general is the new normal:

I've been following this story of the radical right very closely since Oklahoma City. But as I mentioned the other day, I didn't realize what a huge role it has come to play in their popular imagination. They believe they were wronged, and it's fed their militant paranoia ever since then.

It is worse. But perversely, because it is worse, people are less alarmed by it. It's fairly obvious to me that this has been normalized. And it's been normalized to the point where what people now find alarming is someonepointing it out

American voters say 52 - 41 percent that "heated political rhetoric drives unstable people to commit violence," the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Liberals rather than conservatives are more responsible for such rhetoric, voters say 36 - 32 percent.

No, that's not a joke. But I'm not surprised. I often get accused of being divisive when I write about right wing lunacy. It makes people feel uncomfortable.

I hope like hell it's not the new normal, especially after seeing this list linked to by Digby.

The Influence, Or Lack Thereof, Of Squawk Radio

From the incomparable xoff:

The same is true of talk radio, which will be quick to take credit for any electoral success on Tuesday, with Ron Johnson the first to say that's how he won (if he wins). He kissed Charlie Sykes's ring (and who knows what else) before deciding to run, to make sure he's have his blessing.

Sykes was the emcee at a Johnson weekend rally in Oshkosh, and will play the same role at Scott Walker's closing rally in Wauwatosa.

But here's the thing: Most Wisconsinites don't listen to or pay attention to talk radio, either. Sykes's audience is about 2 per cent of the adult households in the Milwaukee metro area, perhaps 20,000 people on average. Mark Belling has similar numbers in the afternoon. It's a very limited listenership, and most of them are already convinced; they are not undecideds tuning in to be persuaded.

As much as we like to demonize them, their role is limited. They have more clout with conservative activists and Republicans who hang on their every word -- and with the editors and publishers at their sister publication, the Journal Sentinel. But the impact on the general public is miniscule, and Dems and progressives do ourselves a disservice by blaming Sykes, Belling & Co. for the ills of the world. They simply aren't that important, and we should not elevate them by acting like they are.

They may be riding the runaway Tea Party train and hanging on for dear life, but they are not steering.

Can We Do That Too?

A conservative radio squawker in Alaska has gotten himself in a bit of hot water and off the air.

Just like our local hosts of hate radio, the Alaskan squawker, Dan Fagan, spent most of his time bashing the liberal candidate, in this case, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, and singing paeans to his preferred candidate. But then he got carried away:

About halfway through Fagan's show Thursday afternoon a caller phoned in to say he had just registered as a write-in candidate in the Senate race, which includes Miller, Murkowski, and Democrat Scott McAdams. The caller's provocation -- and the reason Fagan liked the idea -- was the Division of Elections' decision to provide voters who ask with a list of the write-in candidates. The Alaska Supreme Court is currently looking at the legality of that decision. Flooding that list with 150 names ranging from Michael Ames to Kathy Jo Zurek, Fagan figured, would mean fewer votes for Murkowski.

Fagan gave the addresses of the Anchorage and Wasilla offices of the Division of Elections and urged his listeners to drive over and register as write-in candidates.

Branch Haymans, an Anchorage financial advisor, was angered by Fagan's show Thursday afternoon. Haymans is a close friend of Murkowski's and has volunteered for her campaign, but is not part of her paid campaign staff.

On Friday morning, Haymans called KFQD and spoke with Joe Campbell, KFQD's program director. Haymans said he told Campbell that he thought Fagan's on-air behavior bordered on election tampering, but didn't threaten legal action or ask for Fagan to be taken off the air.

Campbell did not return a message requesting comment for this story.

"To send people with no legitimate reason other than to create confusion and chaos in an election seemed, to me, to be over the line," Haymans said. "He was no longer a talk show host. He was just a mouthpiece for Joe Miller."

Given that at least Charlie Sykes was using his Journal Broadcast sponsored show to do fund raising for Ron Johnson and Leah Vukmir, couldn't that be considered a violation of election laws? (Yeah, we already know it's unethical, but since when have the squawkers worried about ethics unless they could use it against a political rival of their buddies?)

H/T Las Vegas Badger

Now That's NOT Entertainment

In this week's issue of Pressroom Buzz, Erik Gunn takes a look at the Juan Williams controversy.

In the article, he discusses the affect of opinions of new reporters on how they report the news.

He also hits on some old news facts, but in a way making it worth the read:

And talk radio hosts at WTMJ-AM and WISN-AM evidently suffer from no limitations. Last week, Charlie Sykes was heard openly plumping for a fundraiser for Leah Vukmir in her state Senate bid.

Of course, Sykes et al and their bosses will readily disavow the "journalist" label, at least when it becomes inconvenient, and hold themselves out as "entertainers" or "commentators." But are such distinctions really that clear to the public who views TMJ as the Journal Sentinel's radio station?

And then there's the constant refrain that the media are collectively biased anyway - to the left, if you're conservative, and to the corporate/conservative interests if you're liberal. In the aftermath of the Williams firing, Chris Wallace at Fox trotted out a series of instances that suggested other NPR employees had expressed strong opinions in other contexts.

There's no question that journalists have opinions, and that to some degree, those opinions are going to frame not only what stories they cover, but also how they cover them.

But I have a hunch that sometimes, maybe even often, journalists, aware of their opinions - and perhaps a bit defensive about them - either pull punches on stories that go after people or institutions of which they're actually critical - or pump up negative stories about people or institutions they actually agree with.

How Squawk Radio Wil Handle Their Cognitive Dissonance

The local squawkers will be needing to do some mental gymnastics this week after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came out and endorsed both Russ Feingold (damn liberal media) and Scott Walker (damn liber- who? wha?).

The erudite James Rowen explains how Sykes, Belling and company will spin this into a way that looks rational to the irrational mind of your average talk radio adherent.

Why RoJo Is Supposedly Leading In The Polls

From the New York Times:

But the Wisconsin electorate he faces seems to have lost its progressive streak and become more like other Midwestern states. Several polls have shown that the number of likely voters who consider themselves conservative has risen from a quarter of the electorate to nearly half. The misinformation and simplistic solutions propounded by talk radio and the Republican Party are having an effect even in a state that preferred Mr. Obama by 14 points two years ago.

Of course, along with the misinformation being spread out like so much bovine excrement is whether RoJo is really leading by a comfortable margin.

Not all the polls agree on that. And given his recent total flop at doing a money bomb, I don't see his support being as great or as strong as squawk radio would have us believe.

The Sykesian Rule Of Politics

The louder Charlie Sykes squawks about something, the more likely it is that he really is trying to cover up something else.

Would Be Assassin Inspired By Glenn Beck

From Media Matters:

Fifteen years after militia-movement-inspired bombers killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building, right-wing domestic terror plots are a fact of life in America. Since 2008, violent extremists -- many of whom subscribe to the hate speech and conspiratorial fantasies of the conservative media -- have murdered churchgoers in Knoxville, police officers in Pittsburgh, and an abortion provider in Wichita.

Conspiracy theory-fueled extremism has long been a reaction to progressive government in the United States. Half a century ago, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote that right-wing thought had come to be dominated by the belief that Communist agents had infiltrated all levels of American government and society. The right, he explained, had identified a "sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt's New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism."

n a 2009 report, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that the anti-government militia movement -- which had risen to prominence during the Clinton administration and faded away during the Bush years -- has returned. According to the SPLC, the anti-government resurgence has been buttressed by paranoid rhetoric from public officials like Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media figures like Fox News' Glenn Beck.

Just last month, Gregory Giusti pleaded guilty to repeatedly threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- including threatening to destroy her California home -- because he was "upset with her passing the health care law." His mother told a local news station that he "frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas," adding, "I'd say Fox News or all of those that are really radical, and he -- that's where he comes from."

After the 2008 election, Fox News personalities filled the airwaves with increasingly violent rhetoric and apocalyptic language. On his Fox News show, Beck talked about "put[ting] poison" in Pelosi's wine.

Observers of this most recent act were mystified by one of Byron Williams' reported targets: the Tides Foundation, a low-profile charitable organization known for funding environmentalists, community groups, and other organizations.

Beck, it turned out, had attacked Tides 29 times on his Fox News show in the year-and-a-half leading up to the shooting.

Now, in exclusive interviews and written correspondence with journalist John Hamilton, Williams speaks for himself. He asks Hamilton to be his "media advocate" and repeatedly instructs him to watch specific broadcasts of Beck's show for information on the conspiracy theory that drove him over the edge: an intricate plot involving Barack Obama, philanthropist George Soros, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP disaster.

Williams also points to other media figures -- right-wing propagandist David Horowitz, and Internet conspiracist and repeated Fox News guest Alex Jones -- as key sources of information to inspire his "revolution."

In a separate exchange with Examiner.com's Ed Walsh, Williams sought to defend Beck from "Obama and the liberals," whom he said are afraid of Beck "because he often exposes things that are simply forbidden in news." Williams said that Beck advocates non-violence and that he had already researched the conspiracy theories that informed his alleged plot -- before seeing them "confirm[ed]" on Beck's show.

Similarly, Williams tells Hamilton that "Beck would never say anything about a conspiracy, would never advocate violence. He'll never do anything ... of this nature. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence that you could possibly need."

From the Santa Rita Jail, Williams opens up about the websites he frequented, the broadcasts he listened to, and the "evidence" of "sabotage" he "uncovered" that eventually led him to target Tides.

Makes one wonder about people like Dad29 who is always saying to "get more ammo" and listens to the likes like Sykes and Belling or Mr. Congeniality, aka J. Rawson Schaller, from Badger Blogger.

Pride Goeth Before A Fall

Patrick McIlheran, echoed by the other half of McSykes (version 2.0), are busy slapping Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jay Weber (what, no love for Jeff Wagner or James T. Harris?) for Walker's victory in Tuesday's primary victory.

xoff had already addressed that silliness here, as did The Chief at his site.

But I just needed to add my two cents to the matter, since I already debunked that drivel two years ago.

Jessica McBride was complaining about the budget that had just been recently passed and how so many Republicans had voted for it. She had put the blame on the fact that these upstate Republicans just didn't have talk radio to tell them how to vote.

The problem with her argument, and with that of McSykes, is that there is talk radio all over the state:

Too bad that she is lying, or at the very least mistaken. A quick Google of radio stations in Wisconsin, and Whallah!, there is a list of radio stations in Wisconsin, at least 20 of which are identified as talk or news/talk stations in the northern and central parts of the state. Now, if one looks at the map again, a good third of the legislatures are within easy range of WTMJ. Some of the other talk radio stations are located in Wausau, Green Bay, Superior, Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield and Eau Claire. That pretty much covers all of the other Republicans as well.

The fact that there are so many talk radio shows all over the state eliminates the argument presented by McBride, or two years later, by McSykes.

The other issue with McSykes self-congratulations is the simple fact that Paddy Mac was lying about another part (emphasis mine):

The real difference between La Crosse, Eau Claire, Green Bay and Appleton on the one hand and the places around Milwaukee is explained, rather, by the fact that an AM signal travels only so far. The major talk-radio players in Milwaukee -- Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jay Weber -- all covered the contest exhaustively. I think they did so fairly: Notably, both Walker and Neumann got on the air repeatedly with these hosts and were allowed to explain their views. The hosts, of course, formed opinions and expressed them, but given that both candidates were conservatives, the commentary was heavy on analysis and light on excoriation. This analysis and opinion, it seems, made a huge difference in turnout and result.

And that result was this: If a county was within the sound of Milwaukee talk radio’s voice, it voted Walker overwhelmingly. This is the power of ideas, well expressed.

I don't listen to Weber, but I distinctly recall both Sykes and Belling criticizing Mark Neumann at every turn, for grievances real or perceived, in order to help the establishment candidate.

But one shouldn't be shocked at this misrepresentation of reality by McIlheran and company. If it wasn't for their misconstructions and confabulations, they wouldn't really have any way to promote their candidates or themselves.

Talk Radio: Not As Powerful As They Pretend To Be

Recently, they changed the way that they measure a radio shows popularity and the size of its radio audience, relying more on raw facts than a person's memory or answering as they think they ought to.

The ratings game has already changed a lot already. Erik Gunn from Milwaukee Magazine does a good job at spelling it out, much to Charlie Sykes' chagrin:

His discussion of the declining ratings at properties of the Journal Sentinel's corporate sibling, the Journal Broadcast Group (WTMJ-AM and WLWK-FM), is much more muted. We noticed, however, that Belling's chief rival, Charlie Sykes, ranks at No. 4 among morning shows (though Dudek didn't mention him by name).

"If you find a pattern in all this, let me know," Dudek concludes in his column. Well, here's one:

The audience for politically conservative talk radio is actually pretty small. The other stations that duke it out for listeners are variations on pop music - sliced and diced for specific segments of taste and demographics.

Does this suggest that perhaps the "power" of talk radio is just a bit less than the conventional wisdom holds?