The Take seems into the ability of conservative discuss radio in the US.
Conservative discuss radio, a medium full of huge personalities and powerful opinions, is standard amongst a lot of the US inhabitants. In 2016, it drove many Republican voters to choose one of many nation’s most right-wing candidates working. Now, with an upcoming midterm election that can determine the political make-up of the US Congress, The Take seems at what the ability of conservative discuss radio seems like now.
On this episode:
- Flo Phillips (@phillipsflo), senior producer and reporter for Al Jazeera’s The Listening Publish
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Full episode transcript:
This transcript was created utilizing AI. It has been reviewed by people, nevertheless it may comprise errors. Please tell us in case you have any corrections or questions. Our e mail is TheTake@aljazeera.internet.
Newsreel: We have to make a huge effect over the subsequent six months.
Halla Mohieddeen: That’s the sound that thousands and thousands of People tune into every single day throughout their commute. And it’s what number of People get their information.
Flo Phillips: Typically persons are simply listening to the radios as they’re working and in consequence that's their important information supply.
Mohieddeen: Forward of the US midterm elections on November 8, Al Jazeera’s The Listening Publish did a deep dive into the world of conservative discuss radio.
Newsreel: The GOP wants to speak in regards to the following three issues: crime, the border and the financial system.
Mohieddeen: However what precisely is it and the way is it driving the trajectory of voting decisions for half of the nation? I’m Halla Mohieddeen and that is The Take.
Phillips: My title’s Flo Phillips. I’m the senior producer and reporter for The Listening Publish, which is English’s weekly media evaluation and critique program.
Mohieddeen: Inform us about your newest mission you rode round the US listening to speak radio. Is that proper?
Phillips: Precisely proper. So we put out a movie, which is named The Proper Frequency: Is Speak Radio Dividing America, and it’s all in regards to the medium of discuss radio, which is a uniquely American medium.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: I believe it’s fairly necessary off the highest to flag that after we’re speaking about discuss radio in America, we’re particularly speaking about conservative discuss radio.
Mohieddeen: And Flo says, she was impressed to dig deeper into this area after former US President Donald Trump received the 2016 election.
Phillips: We began to assume as properly on the Listening Publish, like, wow, did we miss a trick? Did we not perceive? And I believe all of us realised that we hadn’t given sufficient time to understanding what was occurring exterior this comparatively liberal legacy media echo chamber and that’s after we determined to spend so much extra time understanding the ability of discuss radio, how it's as profitable as it's and with the midterms upcoming, we wished to take a look at whether or not radio was nonetheless holding, as a lot energy because it had executed over the previous type of 30 years.
Mohieddeen: However earlier than we proceed, what precisely is conservative discuss radio? Flo says it’s like sitting down at a dinner desk.
Phillips: They’re speaking about what everybody else is speaking about that day, however they’re doing it from a conservative perspective. And one of many largest misconceptions about conservative discuss radio is that each one that they do is type of blather on about nationwide politics all day. However that’s not really what they do. What they’re doing is that they’re speaking about is type of water cooler chatter that everybody else is speaking about, however from a conservative viewpoint. It may very well be something, any of the key partisan points which can be on the desk proper now. It may very well be the financial system, it may very well be abortion, may very well be immigration, may very well be gun management, it may very well be, you understand, democracy itself. You understand, so Trump’s stolen election narrative.
Newsreel: Could God forbid, that, uh, losers shall be declared winners by fraudulent election officers or secretary of state candidates or governors or state legislatures.
Phillips: And also you get this kind of unfiltered, unapologetically conservative host who's repackaging information of the day, making it extra relatable, lacing it with their very own opinion, an opinion that actually resonates with the correct wing.
Mohieddeen: And the explanation they’re in a position to speak about this in such a one-sided method is due to a change within the regulation.
Phillips: The equity doctrine had mentioned that should you deal with one facet of a problem, you need to give equal time to the opposite facet of the difficulty. However in 1987, the Reagan administration dissolved that, and rapidly discuss radio, for instance, was not beholden to inform one facet of the story.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Mohieddeen: Inform me extra about a few of the personalities and the folks discuss radio.
Phillips: Properly, I believe, discuss radio hosts, they're personalities. That’s one of many causes that they’re so standard and so they’re so highly effective. There aren't simply a whole bunch, however hundreds of them. They vary by way of how standard they're, how well-known they're, how listened to they're broadly. So you will have nationwide syndicated hosts.
Mohieddeen: One of the crucial notable hosts being Rush Limbaugh, who many credit score as popularising this business.
Rush Limbaugh: It’s a model new week of broadcast excellence hosted by me, Rush Limbaugh, a family title in all 4 corners of the world.
Mohieddeen: His present The Rush Limbaugh Present aired on radios throughout the US from 1988 till his loss of life in 2021.
Limbaugh: I’m going to be sharing the ideas I wanna share with you as we speak. I’m gonna simply do it at random each time it hits me. Each time I really feel it.
Phillips: However then you will have many extra native hosts and so they’re doing one thing slightly bit completely different.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Jeff Katz: You go into the gasoline pump $3.50, $3.60, that’s not Democrat or Republican, that simply stinks to excessive heaven. Your pay reduce that you simply took cuz of inflation, Joe Biden.
Phillips: They’re not simply speaking about nationwide politics, they’re speaking about how nationwide politics resonate on a neighborhood degree and so they’re usually individuals who’ve been doing it for kind of 30-40 years. They’re very a lot a part of their neighborhood.
Mohieddeen: And so they have a variety of sway. Don’t they, native radio hosts? I imply, I do know what folks will are inclined to assume that the large stars are the nationwide hosts. However in precise truth, if you need actual star energy, you’re anchoring the native information.
Phillips: I completely agree. I imply, that actually got here by.
Phillips: So one of many issues that we actually wished to do with this movie was clearly to speak to folks in and discuss to analysts, however actually to speak to listeners.
Mohieddeen: Yeah.
Phillips: Why do they discover this medium so highly effective and why it connects with them so strongly? And we met this woman in a spot known as Ashland, Virginia. She runs a barbecue restaurant. And she or he talks about her relationship together with her native discuss radio host, this man known as Jeff Katz. And the way in which that she talked about him was as if he was her closest good friend on the earth.
Wendy Yohman: However my important go-to man right here is Jeff Katz with the WRVA, who's my buddy, my pal…
Phillips: And she or he mentioned, you understand, the factor is Flo, that I communicate to him for 3 hours each single day. He’s speaking one on one to me, that’s what radio appears like. It has such an intimacy.
Wendy Yohman: I really feel like that when, proper when Jeff’s present is over, that he and I've had a front room chat.
Phillips: He makes it resonate with them on a neighborhood degree. He makes them perceive a variety of perhaps the political jargon that in any other case may go over their head and he type of helps disseminate a few of the data that it extra clearly pertains to their on a regular basis expertise.
Mohieddeen: And other people like Wendy, who you simply heard from, are typical of the common discuss radio listeners. They’re not excessive political activists. They’re common on a regular basis folks, who lean conservative.
Phillips: They are usually, not completely, right-wing, socially and culturally conservative, whites, evangelical Christians, they have a tendency to dwell within the extra type of rural elements of America. Those that both don’t really feel that they’re being heard by the corridors of energy in Washington, DC or as we discovered quite a bit, don’t really feel that they’re being heard by the mainstream, the legacy media.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: Speak radio might be at occasions extremely toxic and poisonous. You understand, you take heed to a few of what Rush Limbaugh put on the market, and there are commentary that's misogynistic, it’s xenophobic, it’s homophobic.
Mohieddeen: Right here’s Rush Limbaugh speaking a couple of feminine faculty pupil advocating without spending a dime contraceptives.
Limbaugh: What does that make her? It makes her a slut, proper? Makes her a prostitute. She desires to be paid to have intercourse.
Phillips: There are many issues with what will get mentioned on discuss radio, and in consequence, it has an understandably very dangerous status. But it surely’s not all like that. And the listeners aren’t all xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic listeners. They're your on a regular basis Republican, basic voters. I believe that what lots of people like Wendy have felt, they felt that what discuss radio presents them is information and views that align with their political values.
Phillips: And assume doesn't imply that they're all the identical sort and mold. They're simply folks searching for data that fits their sensibilities.
Mohieddeen: And a way of neighborhood as properly, no?
Phillips: Yeah, I believe it’s provided them a neighborhood, someplace the place folks can go and share their concepts and their views and their values in a protected area, because it had been. It makes them really feel like they've a connection, like they’re a part of a neighborhood, a companionship.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Mohieddeen: However how can that sense of neighborhood blur the traces between information and leisure? We’ll get into that after the break.
Mohieddeen: I’ve been talking with Al Jazeera journalist Flo Phillips, who drove throughout America listening to conservative discuss radio forward of the midterms. She’s been explaining why it performs such an necessary position within the American media panorama. And Flo says, this reputation stems from one thing uniquely American: lengthy automotive commutes.
Phillips: One of many causes that this medium is so highly effective, the automotive is an enormous factor in America and all people goes all over the place of their vehicles.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: And so persons are on their commute. They’re travelling big distances, or they’re sitting in a visitors jam. They're simply listening to the radio and so they’re tuning in for a bunch, a good friend.
Mohieddeen: And Virginia-based host, Jeff Katz, who you heard about earlier, has the prime drive time slot.
Mohieddeen: Let’s speak about Jeff. Simply clarify who's he. And what did he must say about his position in discuss radio?
Phillips: So Jeff Katz is a neighborhood host. He’s primarily based within the southern state of Virginia. He’s in Richmond.
Jeff Katz: It's a Wednesday afternoon…
Phillips: He's one among a variety of native hosts, however pulls a powerful listenership. I believe his numbers vary from kind of 60 to 100,000 a day on any given day of the week.
Mohieddeen: Jeff’s numbers communicate for themselves. And Flo says that a big a part of it is because he entertains. However, there’s a hazard to this.
Phillips: Individuals can’t usually inform the distinction between what's information and what's opinion, and that’s the actually difficult factor about discuss radio. Is it information or is it leisure?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Mohieddeen: Speak to me in regards to the Jeff Katz Present itself.
Phillips: It’s very participating. It’s excessive vitality.
Katz: It’ll be a victory for frequent sense. It’ll be a victory for these of us who're mothers and dads. It’ll be a victory for each single one among us who will get up each single day and goes to work and tries to pay the payments.
Phillips: He has an excellent method with the microphone as he described. He makes certain that what he’s speaking about are issues which can be going to curiosity and have interaction and preserve his listeners. He understands that his position is to disseminate data, however he is aware of that he’s not going to have the ability to do it except he does it in an entertaining method. And he assumes that his listeners know that’s a part of his job.
Mohieddeen: What sort of subjects does he cowl and the way does that have an effect on the folks you discuss to about their voting choices?
Phillips: Yeah, so I requested him, you understand, what are hot-button points that you simply discover that your listeners are tuning in for? And he talked about Joe Biden.
Mohieddeen: Yeah. He doesn’t like Biden a lot, does he?
Phillips: I don’t assume most of the discuss radio hosts like Biden, and I believe they utilise that to their benefit. I requested this to Jeff Katz. I mentioned is your job simpler when the Democrats are in energy? And he’s like, it’s a lot simpler. It’s very easy to take down someone that you simply don’t agree with.
Katz: I believe the Joe Biden fake pas of the day. I imply this, that is someone that you simply, you couldn’t write the script for our president.
Phillips: And he says that a variety of issues he talks about are how Biden’s insurance policies and Biden’s choices filter right down to the folks of Richmond Virginia. The value of gasoline or empty grocery store cabinets, a variety of the actual points that you understand are resonating with folks every single day, however he hyperlinks them to how a choice made by the president in DC is impacting their every day lives.
Katz: Individuals are having an actual robust time once more with the worth of gasoline, with the truth that People for the primary time are going into supermarkets and seeing empty cabinets. That’s simply not American. That’s not one thing we've got handled. And so these are all actual points for actual folks.
Phillips: Every part that's mentioned is localised after which has a conservative spin placed on it.
Katz: Have a look at Loudon County. You bought a younger woman [who] goes into the toilet. There’s a man who reveals up in a skirt, sexually assaults her. Properly, that’s not a Democrat or Republican factor. That’s a hell, no, I need my child to be protected at school and I, particularly as the daddy of a daughter, wanna be sure she’s not sexually assaulted for God’s sake.
Mohieddeen: While you spoke with Jeff Katz, how did he reply to that? Did he see himself as a purveyor of stories or opinion? How does he see his position?
Phillips: So Jeff Katz.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: He sees himself being there to be a part of the neighborhood, bolster the neighborhood, speak about necessary points. And he talks quite a bit about how he's there to place ahead his perspective. However that's what it's. It’s a perspective. And other people ought to perceive that he’s giving them is his tackle the information. He’s there to entertain. I very clearly requested him do your listeners perceive that you're not telling them tips on how to exit and vote?
Katz: I don’t inform folks tips on how to vote. I do share with folks how I believe and the way I’m voting, and in the event that they select to agree, they select to agree.
Phillips: However the level is don’t essentially all the time perceive that they don’t make that differentiation and that's the place the issue lies.
Mohieddeen: And while you talked to Wendy or different listeners, did you get the sense that they understood that the reveals that they’re listening to are leisure and never pure information?
Phillips: I believe that was understood at completely different ranges. Individuals have alternatives to absorb information in, you understand, relying on their jobs or their time
Wendy Yohman: I get my information from Jeff, You understand, he retains me within the loop. We belief him, yeah. And he’s helped a variety of people who didn’t really feel like they had been as properly educated within the nationwide entrance.
Phillips: And what we tried to point out is that completely different folks see discuss radio in several methods, and that’s type of the place the issue can lie.
Shelly Perkins: I’m deciding primarily based on different sources how a lot of what they’re saying is factual and the way a lot is their opinion. I believe you need to have a wholesome dose of scepticism to know that everyone has an agenda.
Phillips: So I believe understood discuss radio to be doing barely various things generally to what it’s doing. Properly, Katz says that, you understand, he’s not telling folks tips on how to vote and he’s sharing how he thinks and the way he’s voting. And in the event that they select to agree, they select to agree.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: The issue is that really, you understand, his sign-off every single day is…
Katz: Jeff Katz Information Radio, WRVA.
Phillips: That’s implying one factor, however really doing one other.
Phillips: That’s the place the traces are blurred in discuss radio. It’s very onerous for folks to have the ability to see that line is being drawn.
Mohieddeen: This isn’t simply confined to the radio, is it although there's a bigger conservative media ecosystem? Are you able to inform us extra about that?
Phillips: Yeah. So Speak radio, as we all know it as we speak, kind of trendy discuss radio business, actually took off with Rush Limbaugh. And increasingly more folks started to grasp that they may, you understand, achieve success in his mould.
Mohieddeen: Shortly after Rush Limbaugh’s rise, Fox Information was launched. That’s a preferred conservative information cable TV station.
Phillips: The spirit and the aesthetic of what Rush Limbaugh was doing on radio grew to become the aesthetic of what you bought on Fox Information.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Jesse Waters: Democrats are wetting their pants over the midterms.
Tucker Carlson: Is a mentally unwell drug addicted, unlawful alien nudist who takes hallucinogens and lives in a hippie faculty bus in Berkeley with a BLM banner and a pleasure flag out entrance. What does this sound prefer to you?
Newsreel: It’s all primarily based on identification politics. She’s Black, she’s lesbian. What else are you aware about her?
Phillips: And Flo says that this has expanded exterior of TV onto digital platforms like Breitbart and RedState, each conservative web sites.
Phillips: And so discuss radio and Rush Limbaugh grew to become a central half in now a a lot bigger right-wing media ecosystem the place the templates and the subjects and even a few of the hosts transfer between completely different platforms. This sort of revolving door of right-wing rhetoric.
Mohieddeen: So, some TV personalities who're on air on Fox Information are additionally massive stars on discuss radio stations. For instance, that is Sean Hannity on his discuss radio present with over 13.5 million listeners every week.
Sean Hannity: The Democrats have purchased right into a sick, ugly, failed ideology, and so they’re all locked into it. All of them should be deprogrammed as a result of not one of the insurance policies that they’re advocating for are working. They’re all hurting the American folks.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: And now they’re all a part of this a lot bigger conservative media ecosystem, all of that are revolving round this concept, that opinion really sells higher and is extra profitable than simply goal journalism.
Mohieddeen: And that is all fairly necessary actually when you think about the attain and affect that conservative media has, not least as a result of the US has midterm elections arising. So what do you assume this media ecosystem is gonna imply two issues, A for democracy, but additionally for the way forward for the Republican Social gathering?
Phillips: I don’t wish to insinuate that having a right-wing media ecosystem is an issue in itself as a result of I believe that there needs to be a plethora of opinions on the market.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Phillips: I believe the issue lies when it's intentionally divisive. Or when it begins to push politics additional and additional to the extremes. And I believe that’s one of many issues with the American media system is that it has been divided so clearly. Down liberal and conservative traces that individuals don’t essentially, they’re uncovered to another beliefs or another values or another information. In order that’s the place it turns into very harmful.
Episode credit:
This episode was produced by Chloe Okay Li, with Negin Owliaei and our host, Halla Mohieddeen.
Ruby Zaman fact-checked this episode.
Our manufacturing crew contains Chloe Okay Li, Alexandra Locke, Ashish Malhotra, Negin Owliaei, Amy Walters, and Ruby Zaman.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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