The termination of WTMJ nighttime talk host Jessica McBride no doubt left a shiver running down the spine of Mark Belling and other talk radio hosts. Belling, of course, has been here before: He was briefly suspended for using the word “wetback” on the air.
Conservatives complain – accurately – that liberals are out to get right-wingers like McBride. But the demise of McBride, Don Imus and (at least temporarily) Mike McGee Sr. has little to do with ideology and everything to do with the difference between real journalism and talk radio “entertainment.” Talk radio has built-in contradictions that inevitably get hosts in trouble.
The model for conservatives was set by Rush Limbaugh. His personality loomed large and we were supposed to accept whatever he said (and join the ditto-heads) because he was a courageous truth-teller who could be trusted. Belling imitated this style with plenty of macho posturing that suggested he’s supremely prescient on the issues.
For Belling and the other radio squawkers, image is everything. They can’t afford to be regularly exposed as wrong because it demeans the franchise, and the franchise’s entertainment value depends solely on their personality. Thus, they screen callers to decide what points of view they can live with, ones that won’t undercut them too badly.
By contrast, a journalistic enterprise like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel runs corrections on an almost daily basis, prints letters that disagree with editorials, and disciplines or even fires reporters who make egregious errors. Yes, the paper can be self-serving or slow to correct errors, but over time, a good newspaper will always prove itself bigger than any one person, even the editor. It can afford to admit errors and should even be admired for doing so, because this serves the entire community of readers.
Belling and Charlie Sykes make no pretense of serving the entire community. Belling’s longtime slogan, “Standing Up for Milwaukee,” generally meant he was standing up for every city but Milwaukee – namely all the suburbs surrounding Milwaukee. Sykes’ slogan, “Standing Up for What’s Right,” ripped off Belling and suggested a similar bias.
Both are smart, savvy media junkies who often sound like reporters but are actually entertainers who don’t abide by the rules of journalism. Day in and day out, they have to make outrageous statements that anger people, most of whom will never get a chance to respond. This builds ratings, but also builds up enemies they can’t afford to let on the air because the host’s image is at stake.
Attacks on journalists tend to focus on policy because that’s what journalism is about. The smart journalist will stick to policy in responding and avoid personalizing the disagreement.
But attacks on talk radio hosts are inevitably more personal and painful. Nowadays, there are far more such attacks; with the rise of blogs, talk radio hosts are under regular scrutiny and subject to scathing criticism, and that can be tough to take.
McBride has been a lightning rod for nasty comments by bloggers and often made the mistake of responding in kind. She engaged in a running feud with columnist Eugene Kane, her one-time colleague at the JS, and couldn’t resist any opportunity to get revenge on him. Thus, her silly mock interview of Kane, where he was represented by a squawking chicken and she seemed to callously use the murder of a 4-year-old girl to score points on Kane. Thus, McGee’s slap at Sykes’ mother, another personal attack done to exact revenge. There was no journalistic point to either host’s recklessness.
Talk radio is a minefield of contradictions – between journalism and entertainment, personality and policy. Its top performers become household names known by all but isolated from nearly everyone. Mistakes are inevitable while walking this tightrope, and when a fall comes, countless enemies will rush to remove the net. With the advent of a watchful, blogging community, more such disasters are inevitable.
The Milwaukee School Board Gets Uppity
The reality of serving on the Milwaukee school board is that you may get a 10-inch-high pile of complex policy papers from the administration, and you have to digest it quickly before deciding whether the superintendent has plotted the right course for the schools.
Last week, led by new board member Michael Bonds, the board voted to hire its own policy analyst, at a cost of $101,745 for salary and fringe benefits, which will help board members wade through all that paper.
Bonds cited the example of the state legislature and Milwaukee County Board, which have their own policy analysts. I’ve long questioned the need for a separate county board and executive. But the legislature debates policy with an elected governor who may be from the opposite party. Separation of powers requires separate staff. The school board, by contrast, hires the superintendent, and if they come to believe he is snookering them with his paper piles, they can warn him, suspend him or fire him.
Once the board hires one policy analyst, they’ll be tempted to add more such staff – it’s a slippery slope. This is a radical change in how the school board was conceived, and in a system that has seen class sizes increase markedly because of budget problems, it’s a wasteful luxury that sends the wrong message to taxpayers.
The Buzz:
-Nielsen numbers last week continue to show the audience for local TV news declining: The total for the four network shows is now 261,500, down from 267,000 six months ago and 320,000 in 1998. Expect more declines in the coming years.
-Did Milwaukee Art Museum president David Gordon really resign? One ex-staffer says Gordon told people last summer he intended to serve another four years. The source says the museum board decided that Gordon, whose outspoken style was said to alienate some donors, should be asked to resign.
-My last column’s contention that Scott Walker promised not to run for re-election as county executive in 2008 was a bit overstated: He said he had no plans to do so, helping to buttress his image as a nonpolitician, but made no outright promise. He certainly fooled this voter.
And don’t miss Ann Christenson’s Dish on Dining.
