Wisconsin Citizen Action: Shut up Conservative Talk Radio

Just found this in our e-mail:

“Can someone win without talk radio? Yes, theoretically. Except no one has.” - Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes, NY Times, 4/4/16

John -- I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Right-wing talk radio distorted our political process once again on Tuesday.

Using our public airwaves for what amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising, Charlie Sykes, Jerry Bader and the rest of the reactionary talk radio circus delivered another election - this time for one of the most unqualified and bigoted Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin history.

This is why we’re starting the Radio-Active campaign, because it’s more urgent than ever we fight back against the right-wing radio machine. Make a generous donation today to help raise the final $5,000 needed to launch the Radio-Active campaign and begin to break the conservative radio monopoly in Wisconsin.

Each day, conservative radio hosts in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and other Wisconsin cities use unfettered access to the public airwaves to blanket our state with racist, hateful content designed to divide and conquer our state.

The conservative radio monopoly is responsible for splitting cities and suburbs, tilting public opinion to the far-right, and setting an extreme agenda at the Capitol.

Worse still, their programs use our airwaves as a get-out-the-vote machine for far-right candidates. Without the right-wing radio monopoly, there would be no Scott Walker or Rebecca Bradley!

We've remained silent for too long. Now we must fight back.

Our Radio-Active campaign will stop at nothing less than breaking the grip of the right-wing media monopoly in Wisconsin.

Radio-Active will (1) monitor talk radio, hold media corporations accountable for supporting an extreme political agenda, and force them to provide balance; and (2) explore the possibility of purchasing radio stations that will air progressive talk radio programming.

We can’t afford to avoid the elephant in the room in our elections any longer.

Are you ready to take back our airwaves and hold the right-wing extremists on talk radio accountable? Become radio-active with a donation today and help raise the final $5,000.

Thanks for joining the fight,

Robert Kraig
Executive Director
Citizen Action of Wisconsin

Interesting question here: Are the people at Citizen Action such yahoos that they actually believe their rhetoric about “right wing” and “reactionary” and “racist, hateful content” and “bigoted,” or are they cynical, assuming that their potential donors are yahoos?

How terrible that conservative talkers have “unfettered” access to an audience that voluntarily tunes in.  The last thing we would want is for speech to be unfettered!

Some of their proposed actions are reasonable enough.  If leftists can buy a radio station and compete in the free market of ideas, good for them.  Counter speech you don’t like with more speech.

Except that Air America tried left-leaning talk radio, and it didn’t work.

The idea of  “holding media corporations accountable” to “force” them to “provide balance” implies an ugly authoritarianism.  Are they planning to challenge the licenses of radio stations they think are not “balanced?”  Are they going to try and revive the Fairness Doctrine to force stations to have a liberal talker to match every conservative one?

Should  “community advisory boards” be required, and given the power to dictate what kind of programming serves “community interests?”

Liberals are always coming up with ways to silence the ideas they don’t like.

But attempts to use government power to silence unwanted ideas shows a nasty authoritarian streak among contemporary liberals.  They prefer to call themselves “progressives,” which may be appropriate, since they now have parted company with classical liberalism, which favored individual freedom, including especially freedom of expression.

And if “progress” can be achieved by an imposed orthodoxy, they are the folks to do it.

Talk Radio Documentary Gets Noticed by Talkers Magazine

We’ve blogged a few times about Brien Farley’s documentary “Liberty or Lies” which examined the Milwaukee conservative talk radio scene.

Now the magazine Talkers has noticed the production, and is featuring it on its front page (the link is to a page that should remain up indefinitely).

Conservative Talk Radio Documentary Getting Attention (and Ratings!) on Public TV in Milwaukee.

Former talk radio producer and talk show host Brien Farley’s new documentary film “Liberty or Lies?” examines the popularity of conservative talk radio in the Milwaukee market. The film was initially a graduate level independent study that took off and eventually found a home on Milwaukee Public Television where a two-hour version of the film premiered on January 30 from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm and aired again on February 4. Interestingly, Farley’s work on the film began just before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Republican state officials faced recall elections in 2011 that put the state in the center of the national discourse about public policy relative to public workers’ labor rights. Farley’s film covers talk radio in the market from the perspectives of its biggest local stars, its biggest media critics and many perspectives in between. He tells TALKERS that local response to the film has been excellent noting that public television audience research firm TRAC Media Services reported the film garnered a 1.6 share for the January 30 airing. Farley is an admitted fan of the format and says he believes the Milwaukee news/talk stations serve the market well. “I think the Milwaukee market is a fantastic example of the vibrancy and power of news/talk radio when done right. The programmers at WISN and WTMJ are very tuned into their audiences and responsive to what the people want…which is the real power of the news/talk format. They’ve also corralled some excellent homegrown talent which means a lot to local listeners.” The question, “Why is conservative talk radio successful?” is an ongoing curiosity among many mainstream journalists. In fact it’s a question TALKERS editors are asked almost daily by journalists working in the consumer media. Farley says he believes his film, in many ways, shows Milwaukee to be a microcosm of news/talk’s success on the national level. “AM radio is perhaps the lowest rung of the broadcast venues and yet the impact of the genre is huge! In Wisconsin, this was manifest in the November 2010 election results in which we saw the most comprehensive turnover in power – from Democrat to Republican – of any state in the country. This would not have happened without Milwaukee’s conservative talk radio. And now with the attempted recall of Republican Governor Scott Walker, conservatives, right-leaning independents and converted Democrats are flocking to talk hosts like Jay Weber and Vicki McKenna of WISN and Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner of WTMJ to hear the latest and find out what they can do to join the fight. Like it or not, Wisconsin is becoming a very different place because of conservative talk radio. I believe the same can be said of our nation thanks to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin et al.” Read more about Farley’s film and watch it here.

Interestingly, nobody in the Marquette Communications school would agree to supervise this project as a graduate student academic course. So Farley had to come to us in Political Science (he actually needed no supervision, being a seasoned communications professional). Are the faculty in Communications thinking that they goofed? Or do they just wish that conservative talk radio would disappear?