Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Dollars & Demigods

The Milwaukee Magazine has an interesting insiders article about the legends in their own lunch box of talk radio, the right wing rabble rouses, the conservative talk show/TV magazine hosts.

In the post "The O'Reilly Fracture" I bitched about the questionable journalism standards of the program. Silly me, thinking it was about attempting rational comment on the affairs of the day.

Dan Shelley in his piece "Secrets of Talk Radio" points out the error of my ways "In the constant push for ratings, I had seen and helped foster the transformation of AM radio and the rise of conservative hosts." (emphasis mine). And we all know that in media land ratings = dollars.

As the "Sage of Baltimore", Henry Louis Mencken said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." In fairness to Americans this quote should not be considered geographically exclusive.

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