When Things Spin Out of Control…

Written by admin from on March 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment

I don’t know how I managed to come across this. Sometimes I just find things on the net. Go figure.

I came across this post over at Muckmakers (which I had never seen before) and thought it was an excellent example of how people can spin things so that they sound totally negative when they are really not.

From the post:

In one of his early interviews, Rush Limbaugh explains that there is a “formula” to his program and admits to just angering and offending people to get them to tune in, as opposed to delivering an actual intellectual conversation on the issues…

Now, I’m not going to condemn this post. In fact, it was sort of funny (in a strange way). However, I did watch the video and wanted to share a bit of insight on the topic of radio hosts and their ability to control their audience.

First, you should watch the video. Here it is.

Now, the author of the article basically says that Rush just admits “that his listeners are brain dead zombies who could easily be led off of any mental cliff he so desires”. I would tend to argue the same about most of the Obama voters out there, and with far more substantial evidence.

Although I am a fan of the Rush Limbaugh show, this post is NOT to try to defend Rush. It IS intended to point something out. What am I pointing out? Why, a bit of spin, of course.

In the video, it is obvious that Rush is talking about his job as a radio personality. Regardless of whether you are a conservative or liberal talk radio host, a drive-time DJ, or an old-school shock jock, your job IS to get listeners’ attention - even if you have to stir them up a bit. Fortunately, political talk is a very easy thing to use to stir people up, even if they are against you (which Rush talks about in the video). Even Alan Colmes does this…and every liberal who supports him knows that, but for some reason will deny it. It seems that only conservatives are singled out as “playing this bait and switch game for a long time”. Either way, when you are an entertainer, you have to get attention.

When a media personality doesn’t give his audience a reason to keep listening and/or reacting, the audience goes away, which causes sponsors to go away, which in turn hurts radio stations.

Another factor that I just don’t get is why people can’t see that regardless of who says what on the air, RADIO IS A BUSINESS PRIMARILY. I’ll let you enter your own comment about the “fairness” doctrine below (I will refrain for the time being).

Essentially, the video was spun to portray Rush as having a bunch of idiot zombies as an audience, which is NOT what he was “admitting” in the video.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about that. I don’t want to get mad and go off on how basically I was called a mindless zombie. I’ll just be happy that I can enrage my own readers if I want to, and if they come back, great. If not…great. Perhaps they will rant about me elsewhere (which increases traffic…heh heh).

Oh, did you know mainstream media does this all the time? Whoops…did I say that outloud?

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Tags: conservative talk radio, Liberals, rush limbaugh, Spin