Listening to the left
Air
America
host adds lesbian voice to liberal radio’s lineup
by Dyana
Bagby
HUSTLING
ALONG NEW York's
Sixth Avenue on her way to the Air America Radio office on a recent
afternoon, Rachel Maddow explains during a cell
phone interview that what she does as co-host on the nation's newest liberal
network morning show "Unfiltered" is not activism.
"It's radio," Maddow says. "We do political talk. You could call
it part of a movement, but not activism. Activism to me is designing a
winnable campaign and implementing it."
As a lesbian, Maddow
knows about activism. At 31, she's already a veteran activist for gay rights
and for AIDS causes.
"As a queer kid growing up in
San Francisco
with AIDS exploding in my neighborhood, I knew I had to do something,"
she says.
At 17, Maddow
was volunteering with AIDS service organizations before moving into
HIV-prevention.
"AIDS is the defining thing
in my life," Maddow says. "It makes me
understand the world and my place in it."
While involved with ACT UP! as a teenager, Maddow became
involved with a subcommittee on prisoner's rights.
"They were a bunch of old
lefties who were the most interesting people I ever met," she says.
"And the battle was real clear - it was about saving people's lives who were in state custody."
Maddow took her political interests with
her into an academic career that included a Rhodes scholarship. She went to Oxford and earned a
Ph.D. in politics. But her career took a sharp turn while taking time to
write her thesis: She tried out for a radio show on Massachusetts station WRNX.
"I was crashing with friends
in Massachusetts,
working odd jobs, when they told me to try out. And they hired me on the
spot. Radio came to me, I didn't come to it," she says.
Maddow never hides her sexual
orientation and has always been out on the air.
"I don't make apologies for
who I am," she says. "I don't hold back."
But she says that she still hears
complaints from some listeners if she mentions being a lesbian.
"I'm as open about my life as
any other host but still hear complaints. [But] I'm talking about torture
memos, not sodomy - unless there's a Supreme Court decision," she says.
Laura Flanders, another lesbian
commentator on Air America Radio, hosts her own weekend show from 7 to 10 p.m. on the network. She appeals more to a
20-something crowd, an Air America spokesperson said.
Maddow and "Unfiltered"
co-hosts Lizz Winstead, a
co-creator of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," and Public Enemy
rapper Chuck D are making a career of railing against the Bush
administration, the war in Iraq and
Republicans in general. But they also know their job is to make sure more
people continue to tune in.
Air America serves as a beacon for socially
progressive listeners, but the network faces tough competition from talk
radio's current entrenchment in a largely conservative landscape of on-air
personalities including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity
and Michael Savage.
A June study from Washington, D.C-based
Democracy Radio, another liberal radio network, featuring Ed Schultz and
Stephanie Miller, reported that national and local conservative programming
totaled nearly 42,000 hours every week, with progressive, or liberal,
programming clocking in just 3,042 hours.
"We're not just waging a
battle," Maddow says. "We're competing
for ratings."
And the competition they offer is
stiffer than some critics initially imagined.
Coming up on its first year of
business, Air America Radio is now in 46 markets nationwide - up from a
beginning of only five markets. Its programming also boasts continuous play
on XM and Sirius satellite radio as well as 3.5 million Internet listeners a
month.
Air America Radio began airing in
metropolitan Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20. The Al Franken Show is
on each weekday from noon
to 3 p.m.; the Randi
Rhodes Show airs from 6
to 8 p.m.
"Unfiltered" is not yet on the schedule, though Air America
officials said early last month that it would be in the rotation.
Officials at WWRC-AM in Washington did not
return a call from the Blade for comment.
The network's ability to appeal to
listeners across the country is a far cry from its early months, when several
bumps in the road made it appear Air America might fall flat.
The hype surrounding the network's
launch was unprecedented, including star commentator
Franken publicly proclaiming his mission on the station was to defeat George
W. Bush.
But Air America
quickly ran out of money and was kicked off the air in Los Angeles and Chicago, two of its three
largest markets. Numerous management changes came in the first six months,
and there was even a week the network didn't make payroll.
And with Bush's re-election,
critics doubted the network could survive.
Even libertarian Neal Boortz, whose talk show is syndicated around the country,
predicted on the air that Air America was destined to crash. But he recently
backpedaled a bit when he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he now
welcomes the competition of the network's rising success.
"I didn't think it was going
to succeed. I'm pleased that it [might]," Boortz
told the newspaper in December. "I'm rooting for them."
Interestingly, the current
conservative political climate may only work to infuse the network with more
support, including raising $19 million in private funding to cover costs.
Lesbian host Laura Flanders also
has a slot on Air America Radio, which was designed to serve as a beacon for
socially progressive listeners.
"It is successful in terms of
getting a lot of attention, it has grown and has some ratings to speak
of," says Michael Harrison founder and editor of Talkers magazine, a
trade publication.
"And it has definitely raised
awareness in the industry that there is a market for different political
views," he adds.
Franken, who recently signed a
multi-year contract, actually beat out Rush Limbaugh's ratings in the heavily
desired 25-to-54-year-old demographic in New York City in the month of December.
Clear Channel Communications Inc.,
considered by many to be a conservative Republican bastion, is even jumping
on the Air America success wagon.
On Jan. 19, the media giant
announced it converted three stations in Washington, D.C.,
Detroit and Cincinnati with talkers
from Air America,
according to Reuters. And on President Bush's inauguration day, the Wall
Street Journal ran an extensive piece about Air America's rising success.
"What happened on Nov. 2 may
have been bad for America,
but it sure was good for Air America,"
Rob Glaser, chair of Air America,
told the newspaper.
For radio expert Harrison, who
says he is still unsure about Air America's long-term success,
watching Clear Channel pick up Air America in some markets is not
surprising.
"[Air America] is a
viable player," he says. "The biggest myth about radio is that it
wants to promote an agenda. The truth is that the goal of radio is to make
money." And that's where Harrison says
he is concerned about Air America's
future.
"Where they have yet to prove
how long they can continue on an upward projectory
is to make the transition from raising money to making money," Harrison says.
AS A CO-HOST of one of the
network's weekday shows, Maddow says her job is not
only to deliver news and viewpoints less represented on mainstream media
outlets, but to entertain listeners as well.
"We work really hard all the
time and take it very seriously," she says. "Going in the studio is
like going into surgery. Once those studio doors close and the red light goes
on, there's no turning back. I feel like the way we do the show is baking,
not cooking. You put in all the ingredients, but you don't know really what
you have until it's over. Until the timer goes off, we're live."
Preparing for a daily show is like
cramming for a tough exam every day, Maddow adds.
Her schedule includes waking up at 5 a.m., getting to the office by 6 a.m.
and spending the next three hours going over breaking news and researching
topics from environmental concerns raised by three-legged frogs to
declassified "torture" memos written by President Bush's nominee
for U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales.
"It's all very spontaneous
what we do," she says. "If anything, this show makes me more
superstitious. There's a lot of luck when you're on the fly."
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