Glutton for punishment: A liberal rates Kansas City’s conservative talkers
My girlfriend rolls her eyes. My friends don’t like to ride with me. But, like millions of Americans, I find myself tuning in to conservative talk radio as I tool around town, a habit that led to this week’s cover story on firebrand talker Darla Jaye.
Since I’m an English teacher and a theater critic, this makes sense: Talk radio is all about rhetoric and performance, the two topics I spend my life thinking about. (Crap Archiving helps, too.)
As a minor public service, here’s my current thoughts on three local talkers.
2 to 6 p.m. weekdays on KMBZ 980
The only old-school mass-media format as intimate as blogging, radio depends on creating habits and relationships. As listeners grow to know the on-air personalities, and tuning in turns into the more habitual checking in, often with anticipation: What will my radio buddy (or enemy) say about today’s outrage? Somehow, KMBZ’s Shanin & Parks show has achieved this without resorting to Rush Limbaugh‘s anti-liberal bloodsport or Glenn Beck‘s theatrical paranoia.
Instead, the show has achieved significant ratings success by being pleasant. Often, it’s even substantive, especially in interviews with local (and sometimes national) political figures. Trust me, a dedicated S&P listener is as up-to-date on civic affairs as Steve Kraske‘s.
