Think Progress, Center For American Progress, Talk Radio Study

WHY DO WE CARE?

Left's Faux Talk Radio Study Irks Conservatives







When social conservative Dr Laura was under fire from dozens of major lefty bloggers over a MySpace page that might be linked to her son (evidence of that has yet to emerge, by the way), major right- leaning sites seemed oddly unaware of the issue.

When Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly were both attacked for correctly pointing out that the New York Times had buried coverage of the JFK terror plot bust on pages A30 and A37, the biggest conservative bloggers provided little, if any, cover.

And rounding out just a few of many recent examples, Keith Olbermann largely got away with falsely smearing O'Reilly over a highly controversial libel judgement against the Boston Herald that had nothing to do with the FOX News Channel host.


Now, for some reason, a phony, self- serving (to the point where at least one person involved has had an ongoing financial interest in liberal talk radio's success) study by the Center For American Progress over the content of talk radio has the right up in arms.

Continuing his recent pattern of linking to lefty blogs with low credibility while completely shunning the right, Matt Drudge touted this new "report" as though it should be taken seriously.

Here, syndicated conservative talker Mark Levin blows them out of the water.

As the study appears to represent little more than sour grapes over liberal talk radio's failure, it's laughingly easy to refute.

While this may come as a shock to some of the right's biggest bloggers, there's a culture war underway, the outcome of which will have a major effect on this nation's future direction. It's one thing to get worked up over a study that states the obvious, that conservative talk radio dominates the nation's airwaves.

It's also appropriate to fight attempts by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and others to muzzle talk radio by reimposing the FCC's former Fairness Doctrine.


A major component of this war, however, is that conservative voices need to be defended when under fire. Most of today's major bloggers won't do this, partly because they see these hosts as rivals. And some are still surprisingly unsavvy when it comes to truly understanding the mainstream media.

Whether it's due to their own personal ambitions or the fact that some really aren't "conservative" beyond one or two key issues (usually terrorism, illegal immigration or pork- barrel spending), it's a damaging trend nonetheless. Because talk hosts are directly in the line of fire, they have a much better understanding of the war and what's at stake.

Let's shift the focus from merely reacting to the left's latest Drudge- driven attack to a proactive strategy for winning this nation's ongoing culture war. Defending, supporting and promoting talk radio will be key to any victory.


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