Voice of America’s Left
Right-wing shock jocks have dominated talk radio in the
US for years. Not any more,
writes F Brinley Bruton.
"Happy,
happy, happy birth- day . . . right wing!" A low laugh and an
explanation follow the jingle being broadcast across the United States: today is the birthday of Jack Abramoff, the Washington
lobbyist at the centre of a corruption scandal engulfing some of the nation's
top Republicans.
"Hate to be a little dark cloud here," says the Air America Radio
morning host Rachel Maddow as the sun rises over New York City. She
segues swiftly into official claims that Jill Carroll, the American reporter
kidnapped in Iraq
in January, is safe. She doesn't buy it. Standing and gesticulating while on
air, Maddow goes on to talk about the thousands of
Muslims rounded up and held after the 11 September 2001 attacks, noting that
one just received a $300,000 pay-off for his troubles.
Air America
is a young network tapping into a growing dissatisfaction with President
George W Bush and taking on the behemoth that is right-wing talk radio. And Maddow, 33, with her new 7am-9am show and regular
television appearances, is at the forefront of that battle.
"Maddow seems to be what Jon Stewart and
others were hoping for: someone with a sense of history . . . doing the
media-heretical - making serious points 'from the left' without centrist
pandering or apology," writes Ken Tucker, the New York Magazine
reviewer. He says she outshines the conservative Tucker Carlson during their
appearances on The Situation, his show on MSNBC, giving liberals a
"feisty" voice. Her popularity is also surging in cyberspace, with blogs buzz-ing about her politics,
sense of humour and looks. Her radio show's podcasts are among the network's
most popular.
Maddow "is making a real name for herself
because she is turning out to be very talented," says Michael Harrison,
an elder statesman of radio and publisher of Talkers magazine, the
trade bible of the industry. With her morning slot, she will be key to Air America's
success. The network, which also has Jerry Springer in its line-up, has been
plagued since it launched two years ago by financial problems typical of
media start-ups. But it has had "a tremendous impact in terms of
publicity", making it well placed to capture the ears of liberal
Americans, Harrison says.
What makes Maddow popular? Not conventional media
experience. She was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes
Scholarship, taking a PhD in politics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and then
working her way through a variety of jobs that included bucket washer and
advocate for prisoners with HIV/Aids, before sliding into radio five years
ago.
Maddow is confrontational and articulate on air,
but not gratuitously nasty. "I don't tolerate cruelty," she says.
This and the news-packed nature of her work - she and her producers prepare
for five hours every morning - make her an exception in talk radio, where
humiliation and rambling opinions dominate.
But do not call her "nice". "It sounds like I'm a
softie," she says. "It's like when the New York Times
described me as 'sunny'. Sunny and buoyant, I wouldn't describe myself as
being. Nobody wants to be buoyant; it is just a shade shy of dim."
Maddow's profile is rising as the president's
approval ratings plummet - by some measures Bush is less popular than Richard
Nixon was during Watergate. Nevertheless, the right still dominates, with a
Republican president, a Republican-controlled Congress and a presumedly conservative Supreme Court.
Conventional talk radio, railing against big government, big media and
political correctness, has been given much of the credit for this grip on
power. It can be extremely conservative. For example, Rush Limbaugh, poster
boy for the medium, once excused evidence that detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were being tortured with, "You ever
heard of the need to blow off some steam?" He commands an audience of
13-20 million per week, the biggest in the country.
In contrast, the Air America network reported 3.3 million listeners over 67
stations for spring 2005. But the new network is growing fast, adding at
least 20 stations since those numbers were compiled. Maddow
says she and her show stand to win given the public mood, and she is boosted
by the conviction that Bush "will be judged quickly and for ever as the
worst American president in at least a century".
That the Democratic Party is hardly capitalising on
the problems plaguing the Republicans ahead of midterm elections due in
November does not put Maddow in a "slough of
despond", she insists. The elections will be a referendum on the
Republicans and they have already des-troyed any
viable programme they might have. "What's the
[Republican] platform? There is nothing left."
Maddow doesn't confine her criticisms to the
western side of the Atlantic. Tony Blair's
loyalty to Bush will, she says, eclipse any other positive policies Blair may
have promoted. "You spend your life helping old ladies cross the street
and the one old lady who you butcher, that's the one they remember you
for," she says, before striding out into a bright, cold Manhattan morning.
Link to
Source
|
