Saturday Briefing

MORE FRANKENFAWNING

Plus: More Asheville Fallout, ABC Fear, Willie's a Bad Penny



While we gear up for our next major pieces, here's a roundup of the latest fodder:


--- Did Al Franken really mock a disabled Vietnam Vet during a recent Asheville radio interview? BoreAmerica has the details, we'd like to hear the audio of this interview, if the host could please make it available.

BoreAmerica also believes Janeane Garofalo has a promising future doing public service announcements, especially for booster seats.


--- Lots of tension at ABC Radio, as worried staffers ponder who will be taking over some of America's largest talk radio stations (KGO, KSFO, WLS, WBAP, WABC, WMAL and many more). One major inside player told me there was hope some of Friday's news reports would turn out to be incorrect.

The big question: can any of the bidders handle taking on this many major talkers at once? Of the three parties still in the running, one has primarily been a small-market owner with few stations in the format, another has a mixed news-talk track record and the other is made up of mysterious investors that may not have a shred of broadcast experience.

Nobody's talking about this, but they ought to be, because so much is at stake.

The bottom line: it's a buyer's market for radio stations these days.


--- John Nichols is fawning all over Al Franken again, this time comparing him to Tom Paine:

Tom Paine put his name only to the pamphlets he authored. But those pamphlets, which achieved the widest imaginable circulation in the colonies that would become the first 13 of these United States, provided the impetus for the break from British empire.

Rare was the home of a patriot from Boston to Savannah that did not have a copy of Paine's "Common Sense" near the hearth. Rare was the tavern where it was not discussed. Rare was the gathering of Tory sympathizers with the British monarchy where the book and its author were not reviled for their affronts to a ruler named George.

I thought often of the pamphleteering tradition as I read comedian, social commentator and Air America radio host Al Franken's new book, with a title that - like "Common Sense" or "The Crisis" - is Paine-like in its bluntness and confidence: "The Truth."

It's fair to say that Paine probably would have dispensed with the subtitle "(With Jokes)," but the old revolutionary wrote in more deliberate times than these. And if it now takes a bit of humor to get the message out, doubtless Paine would approve.

Surely, Paine would recognize the need, in times such as these, for Franken's enormously popular books of social and political criticism.

This is really becoming shameless. More later.


--- Still can't figure out the purpose of Media Matters, even trying to approach it from their leftist standpoint. Have you ever checked out the lengthy list of staff and advisors? Must be nice.

They use the word "expose" quite a bit at Media Matters, but if five million people already watched Bill O'Reilly say something on national television, how is the website "exposing" anything?


--- Liberal radio columnist Brad Kava, who somehow hangs on at the ailing San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, thinks adding California political kingpin Willie Brown to Air America's San Francisco affiliate KQKE-AM for a new local morning show means the network is in good shape.

Brad, when Air America is no longer shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase the right to be heard in the Bay Area, then perhaps you'll have a point.

As for former Assembly-Speaker-For-Life Willie Brown, he's like a bad penny, always turning up. It's been decades, however, since his political philosophy has been anything other than Brown-ist.


--- KTTH/Seattle morning host Mike Siegel has been fired. Blatherwatch has the story.


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Frankenbaby: Pete at IHillary for the Radio Equalizer, Garofalo: BoreAmerica