The Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and the New York Times this week are all reporting the latest demise of Air America – the demise of its top executives at least. Much speculation has occurred as to why the fledgling "talk radio for liberals" network is having such problems. To me the single most overwhelming answer is obvious – they start with this premise: "Conservatives believe there is a God. Liberals believe they are God."
This premise infiltrates everything they do. If, as conservatives believe, there is A God and He is superior to us and exists outside of us, then truth flows from Him and He must be acknowledged and truth is meant to be understood and obeyed.
But liberals don't like to obey. Perhaps this explains why they feel it unnecessary to pay their bills in Chicago and Los Angeles. The owners of the station they are on in Chicago are so enthusiastic with that idea that today is the final day they will be heard in the Windy City.
But liberals don't like the idea of absolute truth either. It cramps their style.
The drawback to the liberal theory is that all men (and by that I mean all of mankind – not just the male gender) are sinful. So if sinful man rejects absolute truth, which God intends, then what you end up with is ... a mess. And "a mess" could not describe better what Air America finds itself in the middle of.
Air America believes their hosts can go on air and say anything they jolly well please and people will automatically listen. In the early stages, Air America was asked, "How will you make liberal talk radio work – when so many efforts have been attempted before and failed?"
Their answer betrayed their fallacy and predicted their doom.
"We don't believe people listen to Rush because they agree with him. He's merely an entertainer – so all we have to do is just make it entertaining."
So enter "comedian" Al Franken and the superior entertaining concepts of "The Franken Factor," desecrating the memory of heroes, or putting the administration's key Cabinet heads on Middle East "wanted posters." Certainly these are gimmicks that will get the attention of the audience.
Wrong. Radio is a dynamic discipline. It must take you to a destination – and you must always be in pursuit of reaching that destination. Through the telling of good stories, radio can be used to inspire, educate and inform. Liberals who have no use for being educated, informed or inspired are not going to thrive in this world. Their messages are filled with bitterness, deceptions, distortions and skepticism.
A good example was ripped from the headlines this past week.
Pat Tillman, by nearly all accounts died a hero two weeks ago – a man who walked away from millions of dollars on the Arizona Cardinal football field to go fight for his country and take a specific stand in the "War on Terror" against those who wish to kill Americans.
With his wife still grieving, his flag-draped coffin not even fully returned to his family yet, the liberals have already started attacking. The voices of liberals dedicated mocking sarcasm to the memory of someone who gave his life so that they could. Calling Tillman every name in the book from "rapist" to "baby-killer" to "dumb jock," the levels to which liberals were willing to go to spew venom on the grave of a hero is stomach wrenching. And the bottom line is: Americans want nothing to do with content like that.
At the end of the day, I don't see how Air America can succeed without enough of an audience to make it in the free market. If they can't get sponsors to underwrite their time because listeners don't like their content and thus won't frequent their advertisers, it won't help them with revenue. If they keep losing the stations they have in the largest markets possible, it bodes horribly for their clients.
I guess some liberal could always invent the option of trying to do liberal radio and force taxpayers to pay for it – even if they disagree with nearly everything they air.
Oh, but wait – that's what we call National Public Radio ...