In a matter of hours, radio news network Air America went from hosting seldom-listened to original content to silence.
The network replaced its Web site with a statement of intent to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing an inability to lock down new investors and the general media climate as a “perfect storm” that the company would not weather.
The larger story, however, is of greater importance. For those wishing to see a reduction of extremism and vitriol in the media marketplace, Air America’s misfortune is a sign of progress.
Air America has been a champion of liberal media personalities such as Rachel Maddow, now-senator Al Franken, and Ronald Reagan, but on Jan. 21 the Internet radio network surprisingly announced that it would end its programming a mere four days later (as of Jan. 25 the network is no more).
Radio will only become a more respected news medium if it adopts attempts of fairness in its commentary.
As it currently stands, radio mainly riles up the ardent bases of each side of the partisan spectrum, with a blatant refusal to even attempt compromise. That is, Al Franken fans are unlikely to ever change their views, and having a network dedicated to Franken and his partners offering commentary provided media that was liberal at best and sneering far too often. .
At the time of its liquidation, the network had syndicated shows to a large number of affiliates, though of course none enjoyed listenership anything near those of Messrs. Limbaugh and O’Reilly.
Some sources, including the Los Angeles Times, have noted that the business side of Air America may be primarily responsible for the company’s demise.
A little-known fact that reveals the inanity of these “conservative” and “progressive” networks is that most of them are owned by the same media moguls, who seem to agree that what is said on the air is hardly as important as how offensive and ridiculous it sounds: Clear Channel Communications owns both KTLK (progressive radio) and KFI-AM (the home of Rush Limbaugh).
One program director summed up the farcical nature of these networks by commenting that “if (Limbaugh) was a communist, I think the show would be successful too ““ in a very different way.”
While it was encouraging to see that liberal voices existed for six years (Air America was started in 2004) in a medium dominated by hard-line conservatives, the greater lesson is that neither ultra-liberal nor neoconservative personalities offer much of anything to their listeners.
The same goes for the Rush Limbaugh camp: though shock-jock bloviating is a sure path to an army of enchanted minions and a staggeringly large paycheck (reports indicate that Limbaugh makes about a cool $30 million a year), a career of ignorant fire-starting is hardly honorable.
There are, of course, plenty of “respected” radio news stations that dip far into partisanship. National Public Radio has been hailed as the focal point of intelligent political commentary while simultaneously denigrated as a partisan abuse of taxpayer funding.
The difference between NPR and Air America or Rush Limbaugh, however, is great. Even NPR’s harshest critics would not claim that they are incapable of providing a legitimate news purpose. Suffice it to say that conservatives call NPR “National Partisan Radio” and decry its supposed liberal agenda, while liberals have branded its programming “National Petroleum Radio” while asserting that it is wholly in the can for the right.
The difference is, then, that NPR provides breaking news and insightful stories (even if the commentary or packaging is liberal), while Air America and Limbaugh’s show generally only offer canned commentary on events that are already hotly contested in the mainstream media.
Granted, most of the top “progressive” talk show hosts either had already left Air America’s airwaves or had never been there in the first place. (Rachel Maddow has her own television program, as does Ed Schultz who ““ despite never having said anything remotely interesting ““ made it without Air America’s help.)
But still, for those questioning whether or not radical segments of the media ““ where the listeners and the hosts only agree with each other’s hyper-specific views ““ serve any real purpose, Air America’s Chapter 7 application was not exactly bad news.
The argument here is not that the land of the First Amendment should outlaw or even discourage opinionated discourse, but rather that the narrow-minded to fringe section of the airwaves offer little but platforms for extremists preaching to one another.
A lessening of the partisanship would at the least reduce anger and hatred across the radio dial’s version of the political dial.
E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.