WHAT’S WITH THE LIBERAL MEDIA
BY
SHELDON DROBNY
In my book, Road To Air America, I discussed the difficulties we had raising money for the 1st liberal radio network in history. I got plenty of introductions from the Clintons and Gores who were very much behind our project and knew from experience the urgency of getting a counter to Rush Limbaugh and his clones. So I was very hopeful that these rich liberals from Hollywood, business, and politics would be glad to make an investment. I was unable to raise anything from these people but it was not because of lack of effort. Many of these people were mega millionaires who had contributed millions to the DNC and political candidates. I learned quickly that with money comes a lot of ego and pride of authorship. In business, we call this “the not invented here” syndrome. Recently, Air America premiered in Chicago after over a year of waiting and we are now in 55 cities and every major population center. Over 20 of our affiliates came from major radio and entertainment corporations. If anyone saw the HBO special, Left of the Dial, they would understand the struggles we went through. All the media thought we were doomed from the start including the liberal print and broadcast sector. Out of the ashes, Air America is alive and well and some reports show that conservative talk audiences are down 30%. So you would think that we would at least get some favorable press from other liberal media.
The last two weeks, Air America Radio has been in almost every major newspaper with criticisms galore. The right wing started the ball rolling with Drudge and others who selectively pointed out some ratings numbers that were completely distorted. The fact is that we are doing well and our affiliates are very happy to replace the failing content they originally had with the Air America content. In addition, the socioeconomic profile of our listeners is very appealing to our advertisers. One liberal journalist from The Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn, wrote a very negative article about our new station in Chicago. Here is the link.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ericzorn/chi-050503airamerica,1,6245782.column?coll=chi-news-col. So what’s going on with the liberals in journalism?
One of the problems with elite liberals is that they actually believe the propaganda they are getting daily about how there really is no liberal audience. Or they believe that the major networks and New York Times are really liberal anyway. Furthermore, they are told that NPR is really the liberal radio network. All of this is false, but the constant propaganda being spun does have a real impact upon their belief system.
It is my belief that the major problem with liberal journalism is much more primitive. It is competitive jealousy. What I found in my travels while trying to raise money for Air America did not paint a pretty picture. As the business plan for Air America circulated throughout Hollywood, D.C., and New York, I got lots of feedback that was very disturbing. Many of the criticisms of the plan came from owners and executives in media who were major donors to the DNC. Some of these executives were actually in radio and did everything they could to convince people that we would fail. Obviously, a big radio network even run by a Democrat does not want to see competition succeed. But, the fact is that we were not competition. We actually asked these executives to help us with some of their affiliates by giving us a chance to improve their underperforming stations. In every case, they refused. This is the kind of support we got from rich liberals in business and journalism.
The last straw for me was The Nation article about Al Gore’s new TV network on cable/satellite at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050516&s=berman. It is in last week’s edition. The way this author blasted the Gore network was very familiar to me. This week they have an article by Nicholas Von Hoffman that is critical of Air America at
http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050523&s=vonhoffman. For three years I have tried to get The Nation’s support for our network. I have yet to read a positive article about us in The Nation or any of the major progressive publications. None of them have even reviewed my book, yet Air America Radio is one of the major media rollouts in several years.
My wife Anita and I are children of immigrants who did not come to the forefront in progressive circles until we initiated the Air America project in 2003. We are not insiders or “label” names in this rich elite liberal group. These people like to fund causes that they like or started but stay away from things that other people do. And they have lots of gate- keepers who are there primarily to say no to anyone with an idea, good or bad.
Rich progressives are very fragmented in their support of progressive causes. They give tens of millions of dollars to various movements that are islands unto themselves. What we need is coordination and solidarity among wealthy progressives. That is one thing that the right wing learned after the Goldwater debacle of 1964. The Right coordinates with each other when it comes to media and journalism in general. They understand the propaganda model better than most and were willing to sacrifice their own egos for their cause. And their cause was to destroy the social safety net established by the New Deal and the Democratic majority that followed for 50 years. I am not optimistic about the solidarity of rich progressives so I think the money and resources will probably come eventually from a grass roots effort to raise money such as was done by Howard Dean in his campaign. It may be the Internet that ultimately brings rank and file progressives together with millions of small contributions to raise enough money for visionary ideas that the elites have not backed or thought about.
Sheldon Drobny
Chairman
Paradigm Group, LLC
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