The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

17 August 2005

Two Great New Columns

Al's Priorities

Why Not Help Catch "Real Killer"?


Doesn't Al Franken's recent public behavior seem just a bit odd?

After all, shouldn't a deeply concerned "progressive" like Mr. Franken be busy undoing the damage Air America Radio caused the now mostly-shuttered Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club?

Or, as Michelle Malkin puts it in today's syndicated column, why not try to find "the real killer", as OJ Simpson occasionally pretends to do? That would require lifting at least a finger to help find former AAR exec Evan Montvel-Cohen, who Franken claims is 100% responsible for the scandal.

So far, we've heard nothing from Franken as to how real amends should be made to the community center, for $875,000 in taxpayer funds that wound up in Air America's corporate coffers.

He says the company doesn't have the money to immediately repay in full, so why not take up a collection? How about hitting up rich, liberal friends?

Or, truly revolutionary, why not open the Franken family checkbook and help out, since it's likely at least some of what's in it was intended for inner-city children?

Franken hasn't made the slightest helpful gesture.

And, instead of demanding accountability from their own side, liberals have been busy attacking the messengers: Michelle Malkin and yours truly.

Readers frequently ask me why nobody's demanding Franken and his co-workers take their share of the responsibility for the mess, including playing a role in making amends.

One answer: because nobody's held his feet to the fire.


Brent Bozell has some new questions for the media today as well, wondering why Bill O'Reilly was such a target last year, while Franken gets a free pass:


ABC gave the Air America debut a morning news story, an evening news story and an entire broadcast of "Nightline." Coverage of their scandal? None.

CBS promoted the launch in brief anchor mentions, and then aired a long profile of Air America star Al Franken on "Sunday Morning." Scandal coverage? Zip.

NBC highlighted the launch with a Franken interview in the morning, and an evening news story. Scandal coverage? Nothing.

NPR promoted the launch on their talk show "Talk of the Nation," as well as their evening news show "All Things Considered," but then aired a critique of their programming on the same show a few weeks later from Michael Harrison. Scandal coverage? Zero.

Then there's CNN, which aired Air America start-up stories in heavy rotation on the weekend before the network debut, as well as promotional stories across their prime-time lineup on Debut Day.

A few days after the scandal broke, CNN's blog reporter noted in the afternoon that bloggers Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin were pushing this story.

But CNN has had no story of its own.

That's rich, because in October of 2003, when "NewsNight" anchor Aaron Brown was announcing his smirk over Rush's troubles, he brought on his guest -- ready for this? -- Al Franken, who sneered Limbaugh could never recover, because then he'd have "nothing left" for radio.

Update: Powerline has the full story behind the Twin Cities non-story, where the Star-Tribune's local version seems to have been put on ice. They ran the flawed NYT version instead. Not good, considering it's Franken's home turf.

AAR/Franken by Darleen Click, City Kid$ by George Adair. Thanks for your continued Amazon orders, they're helping to defray my costs!

published by Brian Maloney at 11:00

14 Comments:

  • Sailor Republica
    Got any PROOF that people "Hate" Al Franken in Minnesota? Where's a poll that backs you up?

    Norm Coleman is the archetype of a blowhard.

    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=7344

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 06:52  

  • Comparing Franken's role in the AA mess and O'Reilly role in his own mess is absurd. No one -- not even you Brian -- is suggesting that Franken orchestrated this con, nor that he is in any way culpable. O'Reilly's problem was caused COMPLETELY by O'Reilly himself.
    No basis for comparison

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 08:40  

  • The “real” story here (outside of the stealing of public funds from children) is the failure of the MSM to cover this story – at all in most cases – or as vigorously as they covered the launching of AAR (their ideological bedfellow), in others.

    Barkhorn. (Scott Ryan)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 08:53  

  • It breaks my heart for Al Franken and Randi Rhodes to take food out of the mouths of impoverished babies. Those rich fat cats are stealing from the poorest of the poor.

    Anyone who excuses their crimes are guilty themselves.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 09:36  

  • First, as a resident of Minnesota, I can't WAIT for Frankin to run. He comes off as a bitter, angry troll. That sure will lure those Iron Rangers to the polls.

    And this scandal won't help. Being involved in stealing almost a million dollars from the poor and elderly will not play well.

    Lastly, for those of you who think Frankin is not involved: You might not think so now, but nobody thought Nixon was involved in Watergate early in the investigation either. You just don't close your eyes when bags of cash mysteriously show up on your doorstep.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 09:40  

  • > You just don't close your eyes when bags of cash mysteriously show up on your doorstep.

    But if a bank robber leaves a bag of cash on your doorstep, does that mean you robbed the bank? You seem to be hellbent on pinning something on Franken that someone else actually did, and Franken's employer - not even Franken personally - unknowingly benefitted from.

    This isn't like Rush getting his maid to hook him up with drugs - that one started and ended with Rush. And this isn't like the Bill O'Reilly sexual harrassment scandal - that one was all Bill. Franken's connection to this is tangental at best.

    I don't think he's a good choice for the Senate, but I'm not sure how, as Sailor Moon suggests above, he's a carpetbagger if he wants to run in the state he was born and raised in. Hillary had never set foot in New York before she ran; neither had Alan Keyes - those are carpetbaggers. Franken's a Minnesota guy as much as he's a New Yorker.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 10:10  

  • http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2005/08/air_america_sca.html

    air america scandal: whole lot of nothin' goin' on

    It's like one of those big high-geared contraptions that clowns drive around the circus: no matter how furiously they peddle, it goes nowhere.

    We speak of Air America's alleged ripping off of little ghetto kidz and Alzeimer's patients in order to finance spreading their liberal agenda over the radio waves in their quest to dominate America.

    Our conservative friend, Brian Maloney of RadioEqualizer has had quite a scoop with this straw dog...he's been not only widely quoted, but has appeared on talk radio all over the country. And we don't blame him for flogging it--we'd do the same thing.
    Al Franken

    His latest accusation is pretty funny, though. Citing a recent piece in the Washington Post where a San Diego AAR listener was inspired to go where Cindy Sheehan waits by the side of a Texas road for George Bush, the RadioEqualizer extrapolates this heady conspiracy:

    Air America's own strategy is now about diversionary tactics, with Cindy Sheehan's rabid supporters in Crawford and one of the network's hosts providing needed cover. If enough people can be convinced AAR's programming is responsible for the activity around the Bush family ranch, it might be a sign the network is in fact viable.

    The idea that Air America, one of the smallest broadcast entities in the country could have manipulated the rolling media thunder that Cindy Sheehan has enjoyed is ludicrous.

    Righties can't seem to make up their minds whether to spin AAR as laughably puny, non-viable and irrelevant--or, as an evil, conspiratorial perp of the powerful liberal establishment.

    (Of course, "powerful" and "liberal" have been mutually exclusive since approximately the time when LBJ decided not to run in 1968).

    BlatherWatch had been following this so-called scandal since Day 1 and we've been ransacking the blogoshere and every news outlet we could think of. For the life of us, we can't find a soupcon of there anywhere in the proximity of there. No matter we've followed all the links and done exactly what the Equalizer and his saucy moppet, Michelle Malkin have told us to do, and read, and think.

    If you read BlatherWatch, you know that even though we're cheerfully, brazenly of the liberal persuasion, we hold liberals to a higher standard than conservatives--because we expect more from them.

    Here's what we still know for sure--for all the bloggy sound & fury, the story hasn't changed since Day 1:

    -- Evan Cohen, the shady former AAR CEO, while screwing over other investors in a web of lies and finaglings, "borrowed" 875k from the Gloria Wise Boy's & Girls Club in New York and put it into his infant Air America. He'd told everybody he had enough money to keep the start-up going for 3 years when actually he had only enough for 3 months.

    --Al Franken, top AAR talent and himself a screwed-over investor said, "I don't know why they did it and I don't know where the money went. I don't know if it was used for operations, which I imagine it was. I think he was robbing Peter to pay Paul."

    --After Cohen's house of cards collapsed, a new company, Piquant was formed with new investors--real investors--led by Seattle's RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser. When the B& G Club scandal broke out, Piquant agreed to pay back the money they're doing that on principle, they're not legally bound to do it. It's just another flaming bag of dogshit left at the doorstep of the struggling start-up by Cohen.

    --New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office is determining whether they have an investigating role in the matter, but right-wing blogs are already attempting to inoculate the projected findings (which will probably amount to zilch) by casting him as a Democratic partisan running for Governor who'd help in the cover-up so as not to "risk annoying his base."

    All this has been is mudhoney spread thick on the right side of the blogosphere. The bloggers' strategy has been to create a volumes of text that look like volumes of scandal.

    But when you blow away the fluff of stern adjectives and self-righteous partisan glee--there's nothing left but a sad story of a corporate asshole sticking it to his investors and employees.

    (Nothing new there--sounds like a clarion call for more government regulations of corporations to us!)

    The MSM picked up the scandal story bigtime, deflating claims that it was being ignored and covered up. AP ran it nationwide. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and a host of smaller papers have picked it up. Fox News talkers Bill O' Reilly, Sean Hannity and John Gibson have run with it, of course. Radio talkers like Big Pants, Rusty Trumpet, Hugh Hewitt, John Carlson, Mike Gallagher have been touting it with the help of Malkin. but it doesn't seem to fly.

    Could it be that's because there are real scandals brewing? There was an indictment last week in Miami against Jack Abramoff in the Tom Delay influence peddling case. The Karl Rove national security scandal should have some thermonuclear indictments soon. The Ohio Republican Party is decomposing rapidly from its rotten core along with their Governor.

    President Bush is facing real opposition to his war from within his own party. The military is in disarray; there's real desperation over replacements for the overextended, undermanned troops fighting in the Iraqi quagmire which daily gets bloodier and more complicated.

    Americans have finally begun to question Bush's methods and motives for getting us into this mess. His poll numbers are at historic lows.

    Air America's troubles? It's blanc mange--but baby, it's all they got.

    Posted by michael hood on August 16, 2005 at 02:05 AM in Al Franken, KPTK 1090 am & Air America, politics, talk radio | Permalink

    By Blogger Shipping / Receiving, at 17 August, 2005 11:05  

  • Another day, another vain attempt to cook up something about AAR that isn't there.

    The transparency of this attempt to blog up a scandal that isn't there continues.

    1) The author has the same level of credibility and trustworthiness to report on AAR as Sammy the Hamster. Agenda-driven reporting is opinion no matter how you dress it up.

    2) You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you. The criticisms of your "reporting" aren't a deflection - you are making things up as you go along. Where is the sourcing? You demand it from the MSM but don't have to cough up yourself. You rely on opinion columns as news sources, and you speculate endlessly about things you have no direct knowledge of.

    The many lies continue:

    Al Franken doesn't care about the "scandal." - Sure he does, and has said AAR should repay any funds received by ex-CEO Evan Cohen as a matter of morality.

    AAR is under investigation. - That very premise is a lie. There is no investigation into AAR and its parent company Piquant. There is an investigation by the NYC DOI into Evan Cohen and city officials/organization staff that arranged for the loan. DOI's comments respecting AAR itself have been limited to a recommendation that money be put into an escrow account.

    Randi Rhodes is on the edge because she has been criticizing her employers. - Obviously you've never listened to Rhodes. Like Letterman, Rhodes has lampooned and criticized her employers all the way back to WJNO/Clear Channel. She has always made negative remarks about people in the business she doesn't like. She has even criticized AAR hosts like Franken and Garofalo. She loathes Ed Schultz. There is absolutely nothing here.

    If we can't trust you to report even the basic facts accurately, why in the world would be believe your unsourced reports and claims in anything else. You want to play in the world of Edward R. Murrow, but you do it running Amateur Hour.

    The only story really here is frustration that your right wing blog, working with other right wing blogs, have been unsuccessful in trying to start a MSM fire over this story. Perhaps it's not a conspiracy - it's just not a major story except in your own AAR-obsessed world.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 11:16  

  • You know what I'd like to do with Brian? I'd like to cover him with falafel, rub his tummy with one of those loofah mitts, and reach around and grab his ample breasts.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 12:00  

  • Saunders: KKZN can talk up ratings

    In recent years, Denver's AM radio scene has had a static, predictable look.

    Clear Channel's KOA (850) always dominates, finishing second, third or fourth in the quarterly Arbitron audience diary reports that measure radio habits of listeners 12 and older.

    Talk outlet KHOW (630), also a Clear Channel station, usually ranks among the top 15 with a 2-plus audience share in a market dominated by FM music.

    Two music stations are consistent in Arbitron reports.

    KBNO (1280) has made its mark as the leading Spanish station, showing a 3.0 share in the recent spring report, while KEZW (1430) gets a consistent 2-plus share with its nostalgia format.

    Suddenly, KKZN (760), also part of the Clear Channel stable, has become an AM factor with, of all things, a liberal, or "progressive" news-talk format.

    Wasn't liberal talk radio, particularly the Air America Network, considered a broadcasting stillborn by many media experts?

    After less than a year on the air, the new KKZN format registered a 2.0 share in the spring Arbitron, up from a 0.5 a year ago when the station was basically a struggling sports talk outlet.

    An audience share is a percentage of listeners tuned into a particular station.

    But raw share figures don't tell the full story of KKZN's rise - competitive numbers do.

    For example, Al Franken's Air America show (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) had good figures (3 share), beating most AM programming, including KHOW's widely promoted Tom Martino.

    The exceptions: the always-strong Mike Rosen and the one hour-overlap with Rush Limbaugh on KOA.

    Franken's show ranked 11th overall in its time period.

    Ed Schultz (1-4 p.m.), part of the Jones Radio Network, also scored well with a 2.9 audience share, handily beating two national talkers - Bill O'Reilly on KHOW and Sean Hannity on KNUS (710) in their competing time periods.

    Jerry Bell, program director for KHOW and KKZN, notes that Schultz benefited from a three-way conservative audience radio split (Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Hannity) in part of his on-air time.

    "Still, e-mails show that Schultz has made an imprint in this market," Bell says. "While Schultz is a liberal host, he's not considered by some a radical lefty. So he draws some listeners looking for somewhat of a political middle ground."

    The 3-7 p.m. talk battle between KHOW and KKZN produced surprising results.

    The former's local high-profile duo, Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman, registered a 2.3 share, while an hour of Schultz and three hours of Air America's Randi Rhodes displayed a 2.2.

    Bell, who balances his duties on the two stations with a straightforward approach, also noted the interesting morning audience shares of KKZN's Jay Marvin, a former controversial KHOW afternoon host, and KHOW's Peter Boyles.

    Marvin's 6-10 a.m. time period registered a 2.0, up from a 1.6 shown previously by Air America's syndicated Morning Sedition Show.

    "Adding Jay was a key decision," Bell says. "Many Air America outlets around the country don't feature local talent, which can be a mistake.

    "Jay has been valuable in the growth of KKZN not only on-air but because of his personal-appearance work."

    But when it comes to value, perhaps it's time for Boyles to ask for a raise.

    His talk show registered a 5.4 share - the highest rating Boyles has ever had in the 5-9 a.m. time period. His audience share a year ago: 3.4.

    Tabulating and analyzing Aribitron ratings is an inexact science, but Arbitron is the only radio ratings game in town.

    In past years, I've quarreled, in print, regarding their accuracy.

    And the figures mentioned above are always broken down demographically for advertising sales.

    And there can be some variances, particularly in the 25-to-54 age demo that talk-radio advertisers covet.

    KKZN rose above the 1 share figure last fall during the heat of the presidential election. That was expected.

    But its audience seems to be growing in key areas.

    Said Bell: "I don't think the Arbitron numbers have peaked yet."

    NEW ANCHOR: Steffan Tubbs, a KOA reporter from 1994-98, has signed on as the station's co-anchor on the Colorado Morning News.

    He'll replace Steve Kelley, now a TV anchor on Fox31's Good Morning Denver.

    Tubbs left KOA for a national job with ABC Radio News.

    He currently is working as a reporter for the Fox-owned TV station in New York.

    Kris Olinger, Clear Channel AM programming director, said a start date has not been worked out.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 12:04  

  • By Phillip Dampier, at 11:16 AM

    -- tell me your thoughts on the randi rhodes memo.

    How do you feel about her comparing this terrible situation to "woodstock"?

    ---fyi

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 12:58  

  • Randi Rhodes has big boobs. I like boobs. That's why I read this blog.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 13:05  

  • Sailor, I like sailors. Would you be my cabin boy? Do you like falafel and loofahs? Please give me a call and we'll titilate each other. Heheheheheh. I said titilate. I like breasts.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 13:17  

  • Blather indeed…
    “The MSM picked up the scandal story bigtime, deflating claims that it was being ignored and covered up. AP ran it nationwide. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and a host of smaller papers have picked it up.”

    Yea sure, AP ran a small piece days after the pertinent facts were known, the NYT also waited forever and then misquoted Franken to soften the piece up and not ONE major net ran the story. That’s picking up the story ‘bigtime”, huh?

    “President Bush is facing real opposition to his war from within his own party. The military is in disarray; there's real desperation over replacements for the overextended, undermanned troops fighting in the Iraqi quagmire which daily gets bloodier and more complicated.”

    Can we have some more unfounded propaganda along with our “higher standards’?

    Barkhorn. (Scott Ryan)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2005 13:21  

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