...as does most ranting of the insane. This goes for crazy liberals too... I'm looking at you, Chris Matthews!
This is not to say that I despise all pundits who dare take a position. You know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Rush Limbaughs, the Michael Moores, the Bill O'Reillies, the Al Frankens of this world. (The fact that he might be a senator in a few weeks is terrifying). What sickens me about these people is not their political stance, I support a wide variety of positions in the media. What I can't support though, is the fact that most of them rely not on presentation of evidence and analysis of said evidence, they rely on sensationalism and rumor. I suppose I'm just harping on the whole thing with Obama again, where people were afraid he was a Muslim, and even though that's just wrong, if it were true, it would somehow make him less qualified to govern, or less American or something. I'm all for discussing your views, but to be condescending and spread misinformation is not a way to do it.
For a good example of the way to do it, I'd offer up the McGlaughlin Group. That show frequently has people of widely disparate views talking about current issues in a rational manner, rarely if ever resorting to smear tactics. And it's exciting too, you get to watch them yell at eachother! If you've never watched Elenor Clift and Pat Buchanan yell at eachother for ten minutes, you really should.
So concludes my least coherant post in a long time. Yay!
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2 comments:
Hey, I just wanted to say I hope you have a good Christmas...
But since you wrote a new post, I shall comment on it. I totally agree with you, but would like to propose a reason WHY talk radio (on both sides) is like this.
For me, the bottom line is that talk radio and "journalism" as a whole is viewed nowadays simply as a business. Which means that each side (liberal and conservative) has to pander to their listeners in order to get ratings, advertising revenues, etc, etc... This is completely ridiculous to me, but it's nonetheless true in my experience as a listener of talk radio.
So that leads us to the question of WHY things are this way. And my answer is simple: people as a whole like this kind of "journalism". If they didn't like it (and therefore wouldn't listen), then the show would be taken off the air. I might be oversimplifying things, but I don't see how that could be disputed.
I don't mean to get too personal here, but some the talk radio shows I listen to are (in some fashion of an order):
-Glen Beck
-Neal Boortz
-Jerry Doyle
-Rusty Humphreys
These shows, with the exception of Neal Boortz, are pretty fair concerning politics to me. Glen Beck is probably my favorite because he actually listens to Ron Paul occasionally! The reason I exclude Neal Boortz from him being fair is because he pretty much tells his listeners from the get-go that if they don't like what he has to say, they can "shove it". Which immediately gets respect from me haha.
Anyways, this is all my opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm a music major after all--not a political science major :)
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