Radio Industry Trade Publications, FOX News, Air America

RADIO'S COVER-UP GANG

How Broadcast Trade Publications Help Air America




Think getting a fair shake from the mainstream media is difficult? Try getting broadcast and entertainment trades to fairly cover talk radio's scandals.

While they've never been particularly even-handed, with the rise of industry consolidation and radio mega-operators, some now dwell exclusively in the sewer.

Primarily dependent on ad revenues from shaky syndication firms, it's a dirty business.

Because it makes a greater attempt to balance coverage, we often reference All Access here at the Radio Equalizer.


Why does it matter what industry trades report? For these reasons:


--- A small but ever-shrinking number of industry professionals, primarily corporate suits, still believe their coverage to be accurate.


--- The Drudge factor: while often featuring stories and links to broadcast trade sites, he remains notoriously anti-new media. Whether left or right, Drudge will generally not reference stories from blogs.

During the course of the Air America scandal, Drudge sat it out, likely because it meant recognizing blogs. Where are his links to Instapundit, Powerline, Captain's Quarters, Daily Kos or the Huffington Post?

Even CBS News has accepted blogging, but not Matt Drudge.


--- For information on personalities and controversies, lazy reporters with dusty, grimy rolodexes continue to call radio trades. Newspapers then publish the often terribly inaccurate results.


Because Air America is a significant advertiser (and as some of their editors and owners are card-carrying liberals), it routinely gets favorable trade coverage. Scandals, flaps and controversies are ignored, while critics are readily condemned.

And that's exactly what happened today.

Presenting one-sided accounts of Air America's week-delayed response were two publications that hadn't previously mentioned our George Soros/Democracy Alliance Air America bailout story.

Without explaining the context of the allegations, especially our $8 million network rescue report, Billboard and Radio Ink were both quick to publish pro-Air America pieces. Bias doesn't get any worse than this.

From Billboard:

Air America Radio president Gary Krantz is firing back at comments made by conservative talkie Bill O’Reilly that the liberal talk radio network is in dire straits.

O’Reilly made the disparaging remarks on his cable TV show Feb. 22, in a segment called “How Is Air America Surviving?” He said, “What you have here is a radio network that is failing financially. This far left outfit comes in and is saying it will pay the bills. The goal is to get across a propaganda point of view under the guise of competing in the marketplace. We're going to ask the FCC to look into Air America."

Krantz responded that usually such comments are ignored, but “in this case we feel we need to set the record straight. Mr. O'Reilly has been bad mouthing Air America and saying it is failing for two years. It was not true before and it is not true now.”

Air America's ratings “went up substantially” in the Fall 2005 book and its affiliate base has grown from 36 affiliates in January 2005 to 90 across the country, including internationally on the Voice of America, Krantz said.

“Financially, Air America is significantly stronger than ever,” he added. “As of today, our booked and pending business for 2006 represents 83% of the entire revenue generated in 2005. We are also up to date on all of our financial obligations. Most importantly, we have a dedicated board and investors who support our business.

"There is no substance whatsoever to Mr. O'Reilly's absurd claims of gloom and doom,” Krantz said.

Even worse, Radio Ink printed only Air America's letter, without any additional information.


In addition, we've today heard from people who noticed a huge error in the Krantz letter: his claim that Air America is heard internationally on the Voice Of America. It's simply not true, they correctly point out.

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Soros/Franken/Garofalo: Pete at IHillary for the Radio Equalizer, Boy: David A Lunde for the Radio Equalizer (by the way, Air America did eventually repay the money into an escrow account, but the Wise club is now defunct)