McCarthy Rides Again!

Glenn Beck took  a page from the Senator Joe McCarthy playbook and found  commies and evil in our government.

He apparently helped force the resignation of one White House staffer and is gunning for more.

Each day the former DJ sounds more and more like the right wing Senator who made a career of ruining others in the name  of patriotism.

And Beck seems to have it backwards when he calls  President Obama a racist.

But then, Beck appears to have cornered the market in creating an audience of scared white people.   These folks make an easy mark so the ratings and dollars  pile up.

Broadcasters only work for fun and profit.  So what if it’s a little irresponsible? The audience loves it.

Remember this is entertainment.

McCarthy kept up his antics which became a rein of terror for many in Washington.  It was ‘unAmerican’ to associate with anyone whose beliefs leaned even a little toward socialism.

He caused ordinary people to question their neighbors.   They began to view even the slightest association as possible connection to communism.

That sort of thing while attempting to preserve democracy smacks more of the tactics used by communists themselves.

Use the ‘S’ word enough and the audience will believe it.

Fear, and planting of slogans and half truths are classic approaches used to stir the uneducated masses.

Listen to talk radio, what do you hear? Slogans and half truths.

Talk radio is about money. Making money is a good thing.   But the talk shows exploit the fears of their  extremely conservative listeners.

Obama’s election is great for conservative talk radio.  He’s the perfect target.  A black man with the middle name that matches that of the former evil dictator in Iraq.

Cha Ching!

It’s odd to me they don’t see him as half white, which he is.  But instead focus on the part that will cause the fearful to be more so.

That must be one of those inconvenient truths, huh Glenn?

I can imagine the show planning meetings where Beck and his team joke about the ‘lunatic fringe’ they cater to.

Do they really believe the stuff they talk about on air?  Probably a little,  but most is created for entertainment and oh yes, ratings.

My guess is they view it as a game or product to be sold in a very crowded field of conservative shows.   This is more about finding an audience which can be motivated, and feeding it lots of red meat.

Radio programming rules really have nothing in place to force balance.  It can be all right or all left or what ever it chooses.

That’s ok, this is America.

But broadcasters must re-think their responsibility.   There’s more than one nut with a gun out there.  All that guy needs is to have the right button pushed.

Beck, and the others are pushing as many buttons as they can.   Listen carefully.  Their language smacks more of the  propaganda lingo used by ….the left.

Broadcasters finally lived up to their responsibly with McCarthy.  A CBS  reporter exposed him for the fraud he was.

Some station that carries Beck’s program will probably win an Edward R Murrow award this year. But they’ll miss the story developing under their nose.

I just wonder what Murrow would say if he knew what broadcasting has become today?

Experiencing 9-11 From Down Under

The air was cool and pleasant on the morning of 9-11-2001.  It was a nice change from the controlled air of the airline cabin I had just spent the last fourteen hours flying.

That morning I arrived in Sydney Australia returning to work as Group PD of The Australian Radio Network after attending company meetings in Atlanta.

Little did we know how the world would change in just a few hours.

Sydney is a day ahead of the US.  So my arrival was hours ahead of the events that would unfold in lower Manhattan that day.

I went to bed early that night in attempt to get my body back on ‘Sydney’ time.

The phone rang around 11pm.  It rang, and rang then stopped.  It started again.  In my stupor I finally went into the living room to answer it.

My wife Ann was calling from our home in Texas.  Her  first words were “turn on the television”.

I really didn’t comprehend what was happening at first.  But as we talked the second plane crashed into the Trade Center tower.  It was all so surreal.

As kids in New Jersey we watched as those towers climbed into the sky.  There was a spot on Route 10 near Morris Plains where you could see them just above the tree tops, maybe twenty miles away or so.

We felt the magnitude of the event even being on the other side of the world.  But for me it was probably different than those that were in the US.

I am still struck by the number of people that knew someone working at the Trade Center.  My assistant was from the UK.  Her aunt worked at the Trade Center.  We waited all day and into the next before getting word of her safety.

Amazingly she had left her office to smoke a cigarette outside one of the buildings just before the first plane hit.  She ran down the street to get away and eventually took a very long route home before her family knew she was ok.

We had dozens of stories like that from local Sydney residents looking for friends.  This was after all the WORLD Trade Center.  People were connected to it from all over the world.

People were nicer than usual, and they’re pretty nice in Australia.  That incident showed us all that we are one.

The strangest feeling though came in the next few days, when travel into the United States was prohibited.   There was as a strong realization just how important home really is to you.

New York is my home.  I grew up in the metro area.  But somehow I still feel a little disconnected from the event.  I was not in the country, and didn’t experience it like those that were here.

I don’t know if I’m happy about that or not.