Radio

On Thursday evening our good friend Mark Levin cited and read from the latest Media Research Center special report, "TV's Tea Party Travesty: How ABC, CBS and NBC Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement."

You can hear that segment by clicking here for the MP3 audio file (courtesy of Levin's producer Richard Semanta).

Here's the transcript by MRC intern Alex Fitzsimmons:

Where are all the big taxers and spenders today? You heard from any of them? But the Tea Party protestors are out there and that's a good thing. All over the country-and the media hate them. And we know this is a matter of empirical fact now thanks to our friends at the Media Research Center. Hat tip to Drudge Report who links to them: MRC.org. And they've done an analysis that reviewed every mention of the Tea Party on ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening newscasts, the Sunday talk shows, ABC's "Nightline," from February 19, 2009 through March 31, 2010.

Now here among their major findings is how our "news outlets" our big news outlets, our liberal news outlets, treat the American people who attend these rallies. They write:

It's that dicey word "illegal" that always throws them off.

New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis, who hosts a morning radio show at WWRL, isn't happy with Arizona state legislators passing a sweeping bill to curtail illegal immigration.

Here's what Louis said about it while filling in on Ed Schultz's radio show Wednesday, after speaking with a caller from Arizona (here for audio) --

LOUIS: Listen, stay tuned 'cause I'm going to talk in a little bit about this bill that just passed over there yesterday in Arizona that will, that would allow the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges simply for being in the state of Arizona. Uh, you guys got some electoral work to do out there, my friend! You got, I don't know how this got through!

If only Ted Kennedy were still alive, so might the 29 miners killed in a horrific explosion at Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, at least according to liberal radio host Ed Schultz.

Schultz wasted little time last week piling on Don Blankenship, CEO of the company that owns the mine where the disaster took place, as a corporate fatcat cozy with the GOP and indifferent to his workers' safety.

In the process, Schultz gave Democrats a pass for their alleged inability, despite control of Congress and the White House, to enact legislation that Schultz claimed would mean safer conditions for miners.

"In 2009, with all the activity that took place in 2009, guess how many network news stories were done on the TEA Party," Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell asked the hosts of WMAL radio's "Grandy & Andy Morning Show" at the open of his April 13 interview.

[click here or on image above to play MP3 audio, courtesy of WMAL producer Ann Wog]

When Bozell -- citing the result of MRC's latest study -- noted that the total number of stories through all of 2009 on the TEA Parties registered at a paltry 19, co-host Andy Parks exclaimed, "Is that all?!"

The former Chairman of the California Democratic Party was for some reason treated as a journalist during yesterday's White House press briefing, and used the opportunity to smear a prominent conservative blogger.

Bill Press, who chaired the California Democratic Party for a few years in the 1990s, and who now hosts a radio talk show, demonstrated his total lack of serious journalistic credibility at yesterday's briefing.

He misquoted RedState's Erick Erickson to make it seem as if he was encouraging the listeners of his radio show to not fill out the Census, and tried to turn Erickson's statement into an attack on CNN, who recently hired Erickson as a political correspondent.

Nary a broadcast of his radio show has aired in months without libtalker Ed Schultz pounding the drums for his listeners to "buy American."

Apparently Schultz's pleas have fallen on at least two deaf ears -- his own.

Schultz recently told his listeners that he is now an "international businessman" after buying a fishing lodge in Manitoba (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ:  Now, here's a good socialist story for you. My wife and I have purchased, I love to fish, I've fished all my life, I love it. And we have been going to Thunderbird Lodge in Manitoba since we been married and we love this place. I love it because I can fly my 210 into the airstrip right behind the lodge. It's got a 3,500-foot strip, gravel strip, right behind the lodge on Wrong Lake in Manitoba. And it was just easily accessible, I don't have to get in a float plane. It's exclusive on the lake, it's been a lodge for years, it was built by the natives back in 1975 for economic development and then it changed hands over the years, it's had a number of owners.

There's something about the Tea Party movement that brings out the left's inner hypocrite. Case in point: the left's front runner for the "most egregiously offensive and derogatory commentator" award is now calling for civility in the public discourse. 

Mike Malloy took to his website on Monday to lament the "nasty, divisive, and uber-partisan" rhetoric in Washington. Who's to blame for all the vitriol? Why it's those "Teabaggers," their "rabid tea-bagging minions," and the "psychotic right-wing media," of course. This from the man who called on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly to kill themselves; claimed that Dick Cheney eats Jewish and Muslim babies; and dubbed Clarence Thomas a "house negro."

It takes a really, shall we say, confused mind to hurl epithets at the people while simultaneously berating them for cheapening the political discourse. But this latest tirade was mild compared to Malloy's past hate-fests. Let us review some of his greatest hits (emphasis added):

It's a simple law of economics, right?  If there's a demand for a certain service or good, that business has a strong shot at thriving. Since the now-defunct Air America shut down for the last time earlier this year, the casual observer must conclude that no one wanted to hear left-wing diatribes over the broadcast airwaves. 

But that's not the case according to a panel on HLN's April 5 "The Joy Behar Show." This meeting of the minds, consisting of Behar, GQ's Ana Marie Cox and liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes, accused conservative talker Rush Limbaugh of playing victim in responding to an interview President Barack Obama conducted with CBS News in which the president mentioned Limbaugh and Glenn Beck by name - calling them "troublesome."

But why is this newsworthy, according to Rhodes?  Limbaugh has huge audience where people are allegedly forced to listen to him because he is on "every station."

"So now they're saying oh, you know, we're going to accuse them of doing everything we did. And that's how people become these victims," Rhodes said. "You know, it's like - an idea that, you know, people listen to him. They listened to him because, Joy, they have no choice. He's on every radio station. He's on - they have no choice."

Equal Time for Equal Minds

Last Thursday, on his unwatched and unwatchable MSNBC television program, Equine Ed Schultz stepped into his Leftist Wayback Machine for a little retro-censorship. With the intent of bringing it back to the future.

Having first called for a reimposition of the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine the week prior on his unlistened to and unlistenable radio show, Schultz took his censorious intentions to his tens of viewers on the tube. (He is doing all of this after making fun of us in 2008 for concerning ourselves with the Doctrine's return.)

Schultz made his latest call for "fairness" by citing the patently absurd 2007 "report" The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Which was co-published by the George Soros-funded Leftist "think" tanks Center for American Progress and (the Marxist-founded) Free Press.

We have in fact dismantled this "report"for its deep-seated and inherent fraudulence. It asserts that talk radio is too conservative - and that we need oppressive government regulations aplenty to remedy the situation.

However, it cooked the books from the outset - excluding uber-liberal National Public Radio (NPR) from their analysis pool and then drawing their fraudulent conclusion.

It was co-authored by the Hugo Chavez-loving, "white people" need to be forced to "step down" "so someone else can have power" asserting Mark Lloyd - who is now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s first ever "Chief Diversity Officer." Just one of the many honest brokers involved in this wholly dishonest endeavor.

Facts, apparently, will not interfere with the left's quest to slander Sean Hannity. What's worse, many of the mistruths are being peddled by Hannity's cable news competition, adding financial gain to the cheap political incentives for delegitimizing him.
Even after facts debunked the bogus claim that Hannity had improperly used funds raised by the Freedom Alliance charity, MSNBC libtalker Ed Schultz parroted the claims as fact. Now, apparently accepting that the claims are total nonsense, Schultz and fellow talk radio hitman Mike Malloy have found another absurd charge to level at Hannity: he praised Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh.
What actually happened? Glad you asked: Hannity conveyed the utter absurdity of the liberal media's portrayal of conservatives by sarcastically calling an audience at the Reagan Library "Tim McVeigh wannabes." (Audio and transcript below the fold - h/t Radio Equalizer.)

Vituperative left-wing radio host Ed Schultz took to the air on Monday and insisted that he hasn't said anything hateful on his MSNBC program in the last year:

Look, we all get carried away in talk radio but I do not think that on 'The Ed Show' on MSNBC in the last year I've said anything *hateful.* Hateful?! ... Hateful stuff? No, no, no, we point out the hateful stuff and sometimes it lands in Psycho Talk.

Oh really, Ed? Yours truly went through our Schultz archive and passed on Ed's greatest hits to EyeBlast.tv video producer Bob Parks, who put together an excellent montage illustrating Schultz's rage against the Right.

You can watch Bob's montage by clicking the play button on the embedded video above at right.

Looks like -- hardly a surprise -- CBS’s Early Show on Friday morning will deliver a jovial and empathetic session with President Barack Obama just three days after NBC’s Today show had a friendly sit-down with the President. Thursday’s CBS Evening News previewed Harry Smith’s time with Obama on the White House basketball court, a segment which ended with Obama successfully hitting a jump shot, to which Katie Couric reacted: “Impressive!”

CBSNews.com features a video excerpt in which Smith despairs over the “enmity” toward Obama from talk radio where he’s supposedly called a Nazi:

After spending time, out and about, listening to talk radio, the kindest of terms you’re sometimes referred to out in America is a “socialist,” the worst of which I’ve heard is called a “Nazi.” Are you aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation about you?

Back to the CBS Evening News, “Mr. Smith went to Washington today, Mr. Harry Smith of the Early Show,” Couric cutely set up the preview, “for a couple of one-on-ones with the President. An interview and basketball.” Viewers were soon treated to Smith’s double-meaning query: “The question that everybody wants to know. Can you go to your right?” As he bounced the ball, Obama maintained: “I can go to my right, but I prefer my left.”

Embedded at right is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's March 31 appearance on Sean Hannity's radio program. [audio MP3 for download here; click embed at right to listen to interview here]

Bozell debated Democratic strategist Bob Beckel about, among other things, charges of racism at the Tea Party rally held the day before the vote for final passage of ObamaCare:

BRENT BOZELL:  Three separate videos of [Rep.] John Lewis, three separate videos, and it isn't picked up. Andrew Breitbart has offered $10,000 to anyone who can confirm the use of the N-word. No one has come forward to say this. Only this one congressman has said this. Nobody's come forward [with evidence proving the charge].

I must have missed the groundswell of support and the public clamor for the return of Rosie O'Donnell to the daytime airwaves. It seemed that her time in the cultural spotlight had passed following her notorious 2008 variety show failure (It was hailed by one merciful critic as "dead on arrival") and her exile to a daily Sirius XM radio show that caters to creepy shut-ins and those unlucky listeners who can't figure out how to tune-in to Howard Stern. But like some sort of loudmouthed, frumpy, left-wing vampire who just won't stay in the ground, she is threatening to rise again with a terrifying plan to replace Oprah once the Queen of Daytime TV retires in 2011. Someone in Hollywood, please - break out the garlic.

Of course, I'm hardly Rosie's daily television show target demographic. I work for a living instead of sitting at home staring slack-jawed at the succession of Sham-Wow commercials and ads for shyster lawyers promising big payouts for the imaginary injuries of their deadbeat clients that fill the time between inane segments of mindless yak. And while the social parasite demographic seems to grow larger after every freebie, hand-out and pay-off the Administration and its Congressional flunkies issue in favor of their employment-averse constituents, Rosie O'Donnell still seems like a bad economic bet.

Ed Schultz rehashed an already-discredited smear of conservative talk show host Sean Hannity on the liberal talker's March 30 "Ed Show" program on MSNBC.

Blustered Schultz as he introduced Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW):

Finally tonight on "The Ed Show," it's been 12 days since Sean Hannity hasn't answered the questions about possible fraud and misuse of funds from his charity. He may have to answer to the IRS and Federal Trade Commission.

But as Brian Maloney of Radio Equalizer noted:

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared by phone on this morning's "Grandy & Andy Morning Show" program on Washington, D.C.'s WMAL (630 AM).

The whole chat lasted about seven minutes, with topics ranging from the media's bias against the Tea Party movement to liberals' affinity for resurrecting the free speech-abriding "Fairness Doctrine."

Here's the exchange on the latter (2:32 into the MP3 recording):

Words matter. They speak volumes about issues. So when individuals or groups try to change the words associated with a heated political issue, take note and take care.

The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life." Instead, the station will say "abortion rights advocates" and "abortion rights opponents," according to a memo circulated to NPR staff.

In making this change, NPR is shifting the terms of the debate to make it more friendly to the pro-choice position.

They Know Nuh-Think It was the 2008 Talkers magazine New Media Seminar - June 6 and 7 in New York City.  I was there to hob nob with the elite of talk radio. 

And Ed Schultz.

I was there also to curry support for our then latest effort to keep the radio airwaves free from tyrannical and censorious government regulation.  At that time it was against a return of the ridiculously mis-named "Fairness" Doctrine.  Given the talent pool in which I was swimming - those whose livelihoods would be destroyed by it's reinstatement - many were graciously willing to assist.

Not Ed Schultz.  

Word of my efforts made its way to him.  And he sought me out and approached me so as to ridicule us for fighting the good fight.  He rigidly insisted that no Democrat - no one in fact - was seeking a return of the Censorship Doctrine.

"Who talks to Nancy Pelosi more - you or me?" he angrily asked.  I replied "Have you talked to Nancy Pelosi - ever?"  Because if he had, once, ever, he had done so more than me.  (And more's the pity for him.)

He responded "Well I just spoke to her, and no one wants to see (the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine) brought back."

I tried to persuade him that there were plans in the works but he remained, as always, impervious to facts.

... aka, the "Fairness Doctrine." And since the sole purpose of reviving this deservedly moribund government policy would be to silence conservative voices on radio, I avoid its Orwellian title.

On the same day President Obama signed his budget-busting health bill into law, Ed Schultz seized on the next opportunity for government control, one without a remote connection to reforming health care.

As described by Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer --

Feeling emboldened by the Democratic Party's success in imposing ObamaCare on the American public, lefties are already looking for the next hot issue to shove down our throats. For MSNBC libtalker Ed Schultz, it's the airwaves that should be subjected to a socialist government takeover.

No, I didn't think it possible either.

Hard to believe but there's another radio host more woefully characteristic of left wingers in the media than liberal talker and MSNBC action hero Ed Schultz.

His name is Norman Goldman, an LA-based lawyer, Huffington Post blogger and frequent Schultz guest "legal analyst" who started his own radio show last year and still occasionally sits in for Schultz.

Such was the case this week with Goldman subbing for Schultz on Monday and Tuesday. And as Goldman never fails to remind Schultz's audience, he and Schultz disagreed on the health bill -- Schultz was willing to accept the Senate version without a public option, Goldman was not.

Some of the American people probably thought they were voting for hope and change when they voted for President Barack Obama on Nov. 4, 2008. But according to Rev. Al Sharpton, they were voting for socialism. 

Sharpton, the founder of the National Action Network and talk radio host told Fox News on March 21, during their special coverage of the House of Representatives' passage of health care reform legislation, this victory for President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would begin "transforming" the country.

"I think that the president and Nancy Pelosi get credit," Sharpton said. "I think this began the transforming of the country the way the president had promised. This is what he ran on."

And if that transformation is socialism, then so be it, he explained. That is what the American public "overwhelmingly" voted for.

Jenna Wolfe's introduction of her guest on health-care on this morning's Today would surely have led viewers to believe he was an objective, apolitical voice.  What Wolfe didn't tell viewers is that Andrew Rubin is a HuffPo blogger and such an avid ObamaCare advocate that he urged his readers to call Congress to lobby for it. Here was Wolfe's intro:

"The politics surrounding the health-care bill has dominated the headlines. But with the House vote just hours away, what's really in this bill and how will it affect you?  Andrew Rubin is the host of HealthCare Connect on Sirius XM Radio. Andrew, good morning. There's so much involved here; let's try to break this down as to how it affects everyone."

I began to doubt Rubin's objectivity when he explained the bill's effect on various demographic groups by in in every case claiming that ObamaCare would be good in the short run and even better in the long run.  I kept waiting for some balance: a discussion for example, of the massive taxes ObamaCare imposes, or the loss of freedom that the individual mandate represents.  But never a discouraging word was heard.  ObamaCare: all gain, no pain!

View video here.

Which made me wonder: who is Andrew Rubin?  I Googled . . .

Is there a conscious effort to give female conservatives a rough time in the mainstream media, especially in this highly politicized environment? Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., says there is.

Bachmann, in an interview with the White House Brief Channel, was asked if conservative women have a tougher go at it when comes to dealing with the press.

"I only know from my own experience that that's what I have had in my state and also on the national level," Bachmann said. "Clearly there is an effort to silence the voices of conservative women."

But according to the congresswoman from Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, the public aren't fooled.

The latest maneuvering by congressional Democrats to make their brand of health care reform a reality has a lot of Washington, D.C. insiders scratching their heads and unable to forecast what is around the bend when it comes to this legislation. 

But have the media completely dropped the ball and that is allowing those in power to circumvent constitutional process? According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., they have. She had some harsh words for the fourth estate on conservative talker Sean Hannity's March 16 radio show. (h/t Kevin Eder)

"Well yeah and the other thing is treason media," Bachmann said. "Where is the mainstream media in all of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story - that the Speaker of the House would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on?"

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and CNBC's Rick Santelli couldn't be more philosophically opposite. Style of argument differs too: Michael Moore assumes the worst in people that oppose his view.

In a March 12 appearance on WNYC 93.9 FM/820 AM's "The Brian Lehrer Show," Moore was asked to react to Rick Santelli's February 2009 call for action against the Obama administration proposal to offer a housing relief through the taxpayer to those who got in over their heads on their mortgages.

"Ah, the sound of angry white guys wafting its way through the airwaves," Moore said. "Obviously that was a pivotal moment for that, but if you notice what he's railing against is he's blaming the whole mortgage crisis on the little guy who took out a mortgage he shouldn't have taken out, living beyond his means, having a home with too many bathrooms, when in fact - as my movie points out - the FBI of all people, have stated clearly through their own investigation that 80 percent of this mortgage crisis that we've gone through has been caused by the banks and lending institutions, by the fraud committed by the banks and the lending institutions - not by the person who's living beyond their means."

"Well he went down to dinner in his Sunday best ..." -- Warren Zevon, "Excitable Boy"

Liberals are so sensitive, such beacons of emotional intelligence. Then they start talking.

Here, for example, is David Shuster speaking with fellow MSNBCer Ed Schultz on Schultz's radio show Monday about the devastating earthquake to wrack Chile.

Sounded to me like Shuster got a kick out of the possibility of a huge quake hitting the West Coast. These weren't belly laughs or guffaws, but it's difficult to imagine anything similar from Murrow or Cronkite in their heyday or Couric at her perkiest.

Want to irk a liberal? I've got just the word for it -- "filibuster."

Hardly a waking hour passes these days without an indignant left-winger in the media condemning this arcane procedure requiring 60 votes to pass major legislation in the Senate.

In the process, dubious claims are being made. Here, for example, is John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, on Ed Schultz's radio show this past Wednesday (click here for audio) --

NICHOLS: The fact of the matter is that the founders of this republic believed in an arcane, almost forgotten concept called majority rule. They thought that a majority got to decide things. And it is extremely important that these senators, and it's not just Feingold, it's also quite a few other Democratic senators, who think they are defending some sort of structural tradition, some sort of American way of doing things.

Conservative dominance of the talk radio airwaves continues, but liberals are making concerted efforts to get their voices heard through large top-down campaigns.

Organizing for America--the campaign arm of the Obama administration--is rolling out the astroturf in an effort to get liberal voices heard on the nation's most popular (i.e. conservative) talk radio shows. The campaign is called "On the Air."

Visitors at radio.barackobama.com (talk about grassroots!) are provided with a phone number of a conservative talk radio show, and a list of health care talking points. They are instructed to call when health care comes up and reissue these points for the benefit of that station's audience.

OFA makes sure to note that the talking points are "only to provide extra information and suggestions." Tell that to Ellie Light.

Robert Siegel, an anchor of NPR’s evening newscast All Things Considered, had an emotional response on Wednesday night as Pew pollster Andrew Kohut described how young adults voted heavily for Obama and call themselves liberals, are less "militaristic" and less religious: "Who raised these terrific kids, Andy?" The men laughed.

The Pew Research Center studied the "millennials," those aged 18 to 29 who did much growing up in the first decade of the new century. Here’s how the discussion unfolded:

SIEGEL: Give us a thumbnail sketch of the millennials.

KOHUT: They're Democratic. They voted very heavily for Barack Obama. They're a little less supportive of Obama today, but still - compared to other generations - they are more supportive of the Democratic Party. They're more supportive of Barack Obama.

They call themselves liberals. Yes, they use the L-word. Twenty-nine percent of them say they're liberals. Less than 20 percent of all of the other generations say that. They're very tolerant of gays and race...