Progressive Talk Radio Airs Today

[RedWoods]

Today marks the launch of Air America Radio (http://www.airamericaradio.com) – a new talk radio station that will promote progressive voices on matters of public concern. It will debut on stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and on Satellite radio. A live stream will also be on the Air America Radio website (http://www.airamericaradio.com) . Their lineup includes Al Franken, Chuck D and Janeane Garofalo. You can expect American Progress staff to be regular guests on the network – including Progress Reporter David Sirota on the premiere of the 'O'Franken Factor' Today at noon.

[tobedawg]

I plan to listen to this today and throughout the weekend.. I got my XM service turned back on just to hear some of these shows!!!

I especially look forward to hearing Janeane Garofelo's "Majority Report" and the show that features Chuck D from Public Enemy..

"FIGHT THE POWER"

[BigSugar]

what makes it so "progressive"?? i mean, that's awfully presumptuous and egotistical. i can't wait to hear celebs spew political tripe. :D is Madonna gonna get her own show? how about frick and frack (robbins and sarandon)? call it what it is....liberal celeb radio. it's ok. really.

[JSpaceman]

When is the live stream scheduled to begin? The website is a bit lacking...

[RedWoods]

comes online at 12:00 today . . . the site in under construction as they prepare the live stream. Should be up and running though soon enough . . .

[peedub]

Originally posted by BigSugar
call it what it is....liberal celeb radio. it's ok. really.

maybe, but these are people whose celebrity is based on social commentary/satire. they've had a knack for talkin' shit from the git go...these are comics and musicians, not pretty boy movie stars using their celebrity to draw attention.

[DudeMan]

I'm listening to Jeanne Garofolo right now. Girl's got some serious anger issues. No joke -- I think even Howard Dean would tell her to chill.

Hopefully the 'anchor' of the lineup, Franken, is better, 'cause if Jeanny-baby is a representative sample, this ain't gonna last long.

[dcXhc]

Originally posted by RedWoods
a new talk radio station that will promote progressive voices on matters of public concern.

I saw the station's big star -- (Canadian) Al Franken -- on one of the network TV news shows and he didn't say that the mission of the station was "to promote progressive voices on matters of public concern." He came right out and admitted that the purpose of the radio network was to get rid of Bush.

[Docta]

Originally posted by DudeMan
I'm listening to Jeanne Garofolo right now. Girl's got some serious anger issues. No joke -- I think even Howard Dean would tell her to chill.

Hopefully the 'anchor' of the lineup, Franken, is better, 'cause if Jeanny-baby is a representative sample, this ain't gonna last long.

i listed for a bit yesterday and did reallly enjoy franken's show. he has a co-host which makes it more of a conversation rather than a monologue which was good. then i listened some to randi rhodes and damn, that woman is like a lefty female sean hannity. she was a bit nuts, even screaming at ralph nadar on her show.

[mikeatthemadfro]

I assume this will never be mainstream on the AM dial?

all satellite?

too bad...
common folks should have access...in the car...

[beezlebob]

Originally posted by mikeatthemadfro
I assume this will never be mainstream on the AM dial?

all satellite?

too bad...
common folks should have access...in the car...

It's in these markets with more to follow...

New York - WLIB 1190 AM
Los Angeles - KBLA 1580 AM
Chicago - WNTD 950 AM
Portland, OR- KPOJ 620 AM
Inland Empire, CA- KCAA 1050 AM
Minneapolis MN - WMNN 1330AM

XM Satellite Radio - Channel 167

and the webstream too

[matt]

Here's a mirror site (http://www.super62.com/main.html)

[tobedawg]

I'm listening to Unfiltered featuring Public Enemy's Chuck D right now..

I listened to Air America on XM throughout the day yesterday and.. it seems very informative, but not as entertaining as it could be. Which in this day in age of entertainment-infested news (i.e. The Fox Propaganda Channel), one needs entertainment value to succeed..

I enjoyed Janeane's show last night, Al's show was okay, a little repetitive and slow paced, but decent... The Unfiltered is okay too.. Chuck D is toned down though.. They need at least one host that is "No Holds Barred.. and let's it rip"..

[IPrayForSound]

Do you want this to turn into a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh? What good would that be? It would end up just as irrelevant and would have the same sort (albeit with a different set of "politics" {and by "politics", I mean shepherded mentallity}) of mindless following. I don't want "liberal talk radio" to be sensational or bullying. I pretty much want it to be boring. I want it to be issue oriented and factual (except of course where opinion is necessary....but I at least want those opinions backed up). You seem like you're just foaming at the mouth to get liberal versions of all of the people you say you hate. If that's what you want, please stop railing against the tactics and/or ethics of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter etc. and just state that you don't like their politics.

[tobedawg]

I didn't say that's what I wanted..

It is a matter of survival.. Most people that listen to AM talk radio enjoy being "ENTERTAINED" as well as "INFORMED".. Unless "Air America" gets more ENTERTAINING then it will likely FAIL..

I'd rather have ONE host on that channel (I didn't say that I wanted the WHOLE FUCKING CHANNEL to sound like RUSH) to offer NO HOLDS BARRED political commentary similar to HANNITY and RUSH..

By staying simply informative and going the direction of NPR, the average listener will be inclined to tune out, NOT giving Air America the ratings or advertising dollars that it would need to stay on the air..


I Want Air America to Succeed!! But, based on what I've heard so far, the odds are stacked up against it..

[IPrayForSound]

Originally posted by tobedawg
I'd rather have ONE host on that channel (I didn't say that I wanted the WHOLE FUCKING CHANNEL to sound like RUSH) to offer NO HOLDS BARRED political commentary similar to HANNITY and RUSH.. Fair enough, but you can't really call that "no holds barred political commentary". It's the radio version of flame-baiting. It's pandering. Either way, I suppose I can somewhat agree that it may be a good thing in some ways (please take special note of my use of the words "somewhat", "may" and "some"). If we've got to have people grazing throughout the country bleeting out the party lines, I'd rather they had a somewhat progressive mantra. I keep forgetting that it's far too much to ask everyone to think and formulate opinions on their own.

[onest2.0]

for a first broadcast, i thought it was pretty good. It should get better as the people who've never done radio before start to find their style.

Janeane Garofalo is probably used to getting cut off everytime she goes on TV, so she has a lot of reason to vent. She should calm down in a little bit, but I don't think I want her to.

[Bronzetree]

Originally posted by onest2.0
Janeane Garofalo is probably used to getting cut off everytime she goes on TV, so she has a lot of reason to vent. She should calm down in a little bit, but I don't think I want her to.

Yeah, a few months back I noticed she was gonna be on The View and since those hens can't shut the fuck up and let their guests speak for more than two seconds, I tuned in. It was an uncomfortable train wreck. For me. Gotta wonder what it was like for Janeane. She's a stronger person than I for not telling those uppity bitches to shut up and let her speak.

[DudeMan]

If they want to succeed as a business enterprise, they'd better hope President Bush gets re-elected. Similar to how Rush's ratings and influence exploded after President Clinton got elected in '92, they need a good foil/counterpunch to really get and keep people's attention. If there's a Dem in the white house, it will be harder to keep any election-season momentum going they may generate.

[onest2.0]

depends on what happens to the house and senate. if theres a dem white house and repub. congress, there will still be plenty to talk about.

[dcXhc]

Fox and the ranting right have done pretty well in a Republican dominated environment. They succeeded because there was a huge void in right-leaning news media.

[DudeMan]

Originally posted by dcXhc
Fox and the ranting right have done pretty well in a Republican dominated environment. They succeeded because there was a huge void in right-leaning news media.
Yeah that's the key point. The left already has NPR, CNN, New York Times, etc., so I'm not sure if the gap in talk radio between right & left alone is enough.

Good luck to 'em, though. More voices are a good thing and I'll tune in as long as it's entertaining and thought-provoking, versus grim and dogmatic.

[IPrayForSound]

Originally posted by DudeMan
Yeah that's the key point. The left already has NPR, CNN, New York Times, etc., so I'm not sure if the gap in talk radio between right & left alone is enough. While those news venues may be left-leaning (and they very well may be...well, the NYTimes definately is...I don't mean them when I say this next bit), they can't even kind of be compared to Fox News, most Clear Channel talk or the Washington Times (the latter two of which have been around for quite some time, which sort of refutes the "void" claim). NPR and CNN can pretty much be compared to most network or mainstream news venues, left or right leaning, in that they are pretty much entirely "this is what happened" as opposed to "this is what happened and here's what I think about that" (Fox doesn't even need that factual basis for their opinions, it would seem). Now, both of them have opinion pieces, and they do for the most part have a liberal spin, but the opposite spin can be and is shown on many networks.

All of that said, I did listen for a bit today, and I'm sort of disappointed. The news bits seemed pretty fair (and balanced!), but the interviews, interesting as they may have been, contained more than a fair share of invective against Bush and/or the administration in general. I'm not necessarily against a good Bush-bashing, but I don't want to see/hear/read it in my news. I'll pretty much only be tuning in to be entertained in small doses, or to hear the opinions of certain featured guests. I'll go elsewhere for actual news.

[Duemellon]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
but the interviews, interesting as they may have been, contained more than a fair share of invective against Bush and/or the administration in general. I'm not necessarily against a good Bush-bashing, but I don't want to see/hear/read it in my news. it's strange, the lil' secret Liberal-conspirators I hang around with were begging for the anti-Rush so they could rally around them.

Personally I don't like Rush b/c of his propensity for exaggeration and divisive declarations and couldn't find myself behind a liberal mouthpiece who was doing the same.

I think a good counter to the Hannidys, Foxes, and Rushes, that the typical liberal would listen to is the All Things Considered/NPR model. Maybe with a clear and blatant lean to the left, but not as brutish as this new radio has been.

All the same there were enough liberals out there clamoring for this. Now they got it. Will it actually cause division?

[onest2.0]

Hopefully, it will lead to more intelligent and two-sided water cooler debates. Hopefully it will get people to read more and seek out real news information, rather than celebrity sightings.
Ultimately, I hope it leads to a Bushless whitehouse.

Airamerica is not a news network, at least in the vein of BBC or Bloomberg, and they don't claim to be. Its liberal talk radio.

[solomon]

I think it will fail.

They've tried "liberal" radio before haven't they?

I think it will fail because radio is based heavily around discussion and getting into detail. In this kind of atmosphere, things get "taken to their logical conclusions" and the logical conclusion of liberal doctrine is socialism or semi-socialism, and that's a bad word to just about every average american, like it or not.

LiberalCommentator: "More taxpayer money fixes all problems."
Average Joe: " So we should give all our money to the government?"
Liberal Commentator: "Umm..."

Sol

By the way the same thing is true with republicans, but they at least give lip service to free markets and limited government which puts up a bit of a smokescreen.

[onest2.0]

Right now, Bush and the war in Iraq gives them plenty to talk about. If Kerry gets elected, they can talk about the repubs in Congress. If, by the grace of God, the Congress goes dem, then they can talk about how to undo all the damage that Bush did.

ConservativeCommentator: Less taxes fixes all problems.
AverageJoe:uhh..I can't afford my heart medication.
ConservativeCommentator: umm...

[solomon]

ConservativeCommentator: Less taxes fixes all problems.

Can you show how less taxes and government involvement cause problems?

Libertarians recognize that some problems cannot be fixed, at least not without creating more, often worse, problems.

AverageJoe:uhh..I can't afford my heart medication.

Do you know what causes medication to be so expensive?

Can you morally defend the forced taking of someone else's property to achieve one's own ends, even if it is heart medication?

SOl

[onest2.0]

Originally posted by solomon
Can you show how less taxes and government involvement cause problems?



Less taxes for whom?

Government involvement is necessary for a lot of things. To break up monopolies, to maintain the country's infrastructure, to prevent discrimination, to police the streets.

Originally posted by solomon
Libertarians recognize that some problems cannot be fixed, at least not without creating more, often worse, problems.

What's cool about that quote is that you can replace libertarians with just about any profession or political party,
"Doctors recognize that some problems cannot be fixed, at least not without creating more, often worse, problems."

Originally posted by solomon
Do you know what causes medication to be so expensive?


The obvious and oft-quoted answer is R&D, the not-so-obvious and seldom talked about answer is the high cost of washington lobbyists.

Originally posted by solomon
Can you morally defend the forced taking of someone else's property to achieve one's own ends, even if it is heart medication.

Nope, I never did that well in philosophy.

[onest2.0]

It has just been announced that four more stations have decided to broadcast air america. The names of the cities have not been posted.

[Duemellon]

Originally posted by onest2.0
It has just been announced that four more stations have decided to broadcast air america. The names of the cities have not been posted. According to the GOP those 4 cities are:

Fallujah, Tikrit, Terhan, and Pyongyang

[onest2.0]

Originally posted by Duemellon
According to the GOP those 4 cities are:

Fallujah, Tikrit, Terhan, and Pyongyang

worldwide baby!

[The Mad Hater]

with 97.7 going off the air, I've been trying to ween myself off by tuning in to AM, listening to ESPN radio when they're talking football, and Boortz, Rush, and Hannity otherwise, if not woxy.

Boortz is fine. this is a man who understands the flaws of both sides of our nation's fence. he gets a little too down-homey sometimes, not caring that his nation-wide audience couldn't care less about potholes in downtown Atlanta and the tree in his producer's back yard. other than that, his program is informative first, entertaining second.

Rush is despicable. for three unbearably repetetive hours, Rush pontificates on something bad that Kerry's camp said about Bush. he doesn't say why Kerry's camp is wrong, he doesn't really say much of anything. he recycles information and spins it into new arguments against liberals/democrats, and stonewalls any information or opinion that challenges his stance. I dropped out on Rush early on.

Sean Hannity is entertaining first, informative sometimes, and pitiful just as much. Sean is a true champion of his causes; from the Passion of the Christ to the perceived utter righteousness of Boosh, this man has the charisma to make even a centrist-conservative feel his pain, and fight his fight. his flaw is his commitment, however, as you might get the feeling that at some point he's been brainwashed. if Boosh could make room in his ass for one more, Hannity would bolt for the free parking, and never come back.

if or when this "progressive" talk radio airs in our local markets, I'll be eagerly tuning in. Al Franken is far more entertaining than any of these three even without talking politics. and I will admit that the market is starving for a counterpoint to the conservative monopoly on talk radio. I just hope that the whole thing doesn't turn into an absolute counterpart of conservative talk radio: THEY are ALWAYS wrong, WE are ALWAYS right. there is NO argument. this is exactly why the left is so annoyed with conservative talk-radio, is it not?

[IPrayForSound]

Originally posted by The Mad Hater
this is exactly why the left is so annoyed with conservative talk-radio, is it not? That's what I thought, too...turns out a whole crapload of liberals were just jealous, and now that it looks like they may have their own Rush O'Hannity to love and pet and call George they're practically peeing their pants.

[onest2.0]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
That's what I thought, too...turns out a whole crapload of liberals were just jealous, and now that it looks like they may have their own Rush O'Hannity to love and pet and call George they're practically peeing their pants.

So what you're saying is that there is a market for liberal radio.

[IPrayForSound]

Yup. Unfortunately. I wish there were a market for news of particular interest to liberals (such as hints of scandal in the republican party and whatnot that most dyed-in-the-wool conservatives would rather never hear about) and a seperate market for Lizz and Al and Janeane to do their political comedy.

[Duemellon]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
Yup. Unfortunately. I wish there were a market for news of particular interest to liberals (such as hints of scandal in the republican party and whatnot that most dyed-in-the-wool conservatives would rather never hear about) and a seperate market for Lizz and Al and Janeane to do their political comedy. agreed

[onest2.0]

I agree as well. There are several news stories brought up on Air America and many of the guests have contributed to bringing these under-reported stories to light, but it is not the focus of the network. Hopefully, if Air America remains popular and is an economically viable format, more media options will emerge. There is also still room left in Air America's programming to include more straight-news shows. Prticularly on the overnight and weekends. The network could also furthur develop a news division. I think they are just using WLIB's news people as of right now.

[Necromancer]

Listened to the stream most of the day yesterday. Here's what I got out of it:

In the beginning of talk radio there was Republican Propaganda.

Then came Democrat Propaganda (these people are Democrats, more interested in getting Bush out, than any real change)

It's just seems like another way to make everyone think there are only 2 sides to every story. It just builds on the whole "us" vs. "them" setting of American politics.

Pathetic, really.

[onest2.0]

I hope your claiming that all talk radio is pathetic then, because then I can understand your argument.

[solomon]

Less taxes for whom?

Um. Everyone.

Government involvement is necessary for a lot of things. To break up monopolies, to maintain the country's infrastructure, to prevent discrimination, to police the streets.

What makes you think the government is necessary for these things? So if the governments job is to prevent discrimination are you outraged that they aren't doing anything about the fact that taxicab companies aren't hiring blind people?

What's cool about that quote is that you can replace libertarians with just about any profession or political party,

No that is not true. If you listen to a socialist or hard liberal, the government can solve EVERY problem. Discrimination, health, education, poor, equality, happiness...these all fall within the domain of government.

The obvious and oft-quoted answer is R&D, the not-so-obvious and seldom talked about answer is the high cost of washington lobbyists.

How about the high costs of the myriad and suffocating government codes and regulations, particularly in the health care industry. How about the patent laws that restrict entry. The incentive to keep a careful eye on expenditures disappears when probably over half is being paid by a third-party payer (government.) There are many reasons and 9/10s of them have to do with the state having its nose where it doesn't belong.

Nope, I never did that well in philosophy.

I kinda figured.

Sol

[onest2.0]

Actually, I lied. I got an "A" in philosophy, but I didn't like writing the papers, and I don't feel like writing one on this board.

Sure, a free market capitalist society sounds great, but it is a shame we don't live in one. I'm sure from your economic studies, you know that a free market requires equal oppurtunity to access to the market. Maybe we could have waited for the slow hand to break up the standard oil trusts or to end slavery, but maybe the lives of millions of slaves were worth speeding up the process.

If you want to get into personal insults, I won't go there

[solomon]

a free market capitalist society sounds great, but it is a shame we don't live in one.

That's definitely true.

you know that a free market requires equal oppurtunity to access to the market.

Within the law yes. That doesn't mean everyone has a right to the funds necessary to enter the oil industry. It's very expensive to get into the semi-conductor industry, but that doesn't mean that because you don't have the money to do it capitalism doesn't work.

Maybe we could have waited for the slow hand to break up the standard oil trusts or to end slavery, but maybe the lives of millions of slaves were worth speeding up the process.

I am completely against slavery and it goes against every capitalist tenet. You don't really believe that slavery is excused by capitalist values do you? And there was no need to break up the oil trusts at all. They lead to drastically cheaper oil prices and innovation. Anti trust has always been protectionist under its skin.

If you want to get into personal insults, I won't go there

Come on you were being a bit of a smart ass in your reply, admit it. And you set me up perfectly ; ) Sorry if you were offended.

[Necromancer]

Originally posted by onest2.0
I hope your claiming that all talk radio is pathetic then, because then I can understand your argument.

Yes, yes I am.