In a country where demonizing the opposition is the staple of public
discourse, from street corners to the presidential campaign, talk
radio increasingly strives to appeal to the very worst in us.


http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opfocus5493094dec09,0,2935345.story

December 9, 2007

As Imus returns, talk radio silences dissenters

BY RONALD L. KUBY | Ronald L. Kuby has a law practice in Manhattan
that specializes in criminal defense and civil rights.


At the beginning of last month, the "Curtis and Kuby" morning show
signed off WABC radio.

We lasted almost eight years - a long run for a wake-up program in New
York City, where hosts' longevity can mimic the life span of fruit
flies.

The corporate powers that purchased ABC's radio division earlier this
year replaced us with the again-resurrected Don Imus, whose syndicated
show began last week and will be carried around the country.

In the right-wing-dominated world of talk radio, "Curtis and Kuby" was
unique for having one host from the left and another from the right -
a left-wing civil rights lawyer (me) pitted against the right-wing,
red-beret and satin-jacket-clad founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis
Sliwa.

Both right and left had equal microphone time.

We were two passionate guys reading the morning paper aloud and
arguing over the stories.

In our audio home, neighbors - our callers - would drop by to throw in
their two cents.

I would appeal to listeners' minds and Curtis to their guts.

We learned how to disagree without being disagreeable.

We were a family, not a political party.

We provided analysis rather than caricatures.

Most important for the rest of the country - especially in a
presidential election season - we managed to successfully challenge
the traditional wisdom in broadcasting that a left-wing host could not
appeal to a conservative audience, except as a stooge to be vanquished
by the right-wing counterpuncher, the nightly sport on the Fox News
Channel.

As an avowed communist, atheist and civil rights activist who is
pro-choice and anti-war, it would take me a while to win the respect
and affection of the Rush Limbaugh-Sean Hannity fans who made up much
of the WABC audience.

From the start, I decided not to mimic from the left the nasty,
contentless name-calling of right-wing talkers.

No matter how loathsome one finds President George W. Bush, calling
him a war criminal over and over neither entertains nor edifies.

Likening America to Nazi Germany is the verbal equivalent of
flag-burning;

it so enrages the audience, they will not think about the legitimate
points you are trying to make.

Thoughtful, logical explanations of my views - words forming sentences
and sentences becoming paragraphs, always making clear what my sources
were and why I believed them - would over time win the respect of
listeners, even when they disagreed with my conclusions.

At the same time, over eight years, my personal life became very
public.

The audience discovered that I did not live on Planet Liberal, a
strange world existing in the conservative imagination where Santa
Claus is hunted for sport (but never with a gun), Bush is Hitler,
girls are encouraged to have sex and must have abortions, and the only
religion that is tolerated is radical Islam because, after all, they
are trying to kill us.

Our listeners learned that I, like them, put up Christmas lights while
standing on a rickety ladder, own firearms, want the government out of
my bedroom, enjoy having a beer or two at night, have felt the pain of
having a dying parent, and admit that if a teenage version of me came
to date my daughter, I would have him arrested.

The audience got a chance to realize that I was much like them; I was
on their side.

We want the same things for our family and country, but we disagree on
how to get there from here.

The format guaranteed that each listener disagreed with at least half
of what was said, all of the time.

But no matter how many people pounded the dashboard over something one
of us said, listeners always heard the other host forcefully respond.

The audience felt vindicated by the exchange because their side had
its say.

Listeners were able to sharpen their own rhetorical skills by hearing
their arguments given voice, challenged, then affirmed or refuted.

All of this is very different from the usual talk show experience,
where the listeners are made to feel that they are at a political pep
rally or part of a beleaguered minority under assault that needs to be
defended by the host.

And our show was successful.

We won awards for best this and best that.

Our ratings regularly topped Imus when the two shows went head to
head.

Even in the demographic advertisers prize - listeners aged 25-54 -
Imus and our show were close, and we were on the rise.

None of this saved us.

We were doomed by the confluence of two forces that are dooming local
radio.

First, there is globalization.

By using syndicated shows and firing local hosts and air staff, the
parent corporation saves money.

The nation gets a homogenized sound, from Brooklyn to Berkeley.

Long the media globalizer - where local shows like Imus and Howard
Stern eventually went national - New York has become the globalized.

A generation ago, WABC radio was almost entirely local.

Today, syndicated programming - including Imus - takes up more than 19
hours a day.

Second, programmers increasingly promote ideological consistency by
presenting only one side of the political debate.

Called "stationality," the concept is to offer the same views through
different voices all day, making listeners feel safely cocooned in
their biases.

Debates run the gamut from A to B, featuring discourse along the lines
of "Hillary Clinton, Threat or Menace?"

After all, you might become unsettled if the liberal persuades you in
the morning and then you have to decide that the conservative in the
afternoon is wrong.

WABC's target audience leans right, and the return of Imus provided
the basis to oust me, the last leftist left.

Nor is this phenomenon confined to broadcast.

Sirius Satellite Radio offers Sirius Left and Sirius Right - but never
the twain shall meet.

Unfortunately, the concept of stationality runs counter to the essence
of discourse and debate.

Programming radio stations along ideological lines, whether right or
left, insults the intelligence of the listeners, deprives people of
what they need to hear and retards the development of critical
thinking.

The highest compliment my audience paid to me was the callers who said
they disagreed but at least I had made them think.

Just last week, a former listener wrote to thank me for showing him
that it's not enough to just have an opinion, it needs to be supported
by reasons.

I have lost my show.

But radio listeners around the nation are losing far more.

And it doesn't look as if they will get it back any time soon.

In a country where demonizing the opposition is the staple of public
discourse, from street corners to the presidential campaign, talk
radio increasingly strives to appeal to the very worst in us.

______________________________________________

Ron Kuby, ladies and gentlemen

Harry