In a piece on talk radio in America, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod spoke with several people involved in talk radio to discern the medium’s place in America’s current polarized and divided state.
Axelrod asked Brian Rosenwald, author of Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party, “In 2022’s America, what’s the nature of talk radio? Is it any different than it’s been the last two or three decades?”
“If anything, Jim, I think it’s more extreme,” Rosenwald replied. The end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 meant radio and TV broadcasters were no longer required to air both sides of hot button issues.
“And I think over that long span, it has unquestionably divided Americans,” Rosenwald said. “It has unquestionably hardened our politics.”
Rush Limbaugh launched his nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show in 1988, which spawned a genre of like-minded hosts. It’s meant that conservatives have dominated the talk radio landscape, something Talkers Magazine founder Michael Harrison noted.
“We’re facing a cultural crisis in this country. If we could have on the liberal side what we have on the conservative side, the talk radio industry would be better, free speech would be better served, and the nation would be better served.”
SuperTalk 99.7 WTN morning host Dan Mandis pushed back on the insinuation that the medium has become “too extreme”, saying it has never been extreme, and isn’t today.
