2024 and the Presidential Election are here. News/talk hosts, sales managers, market managers, and brand managers are salivating over the windfall. Big ratings! Really? Here are three tips on how you can avoid ruining the huge windfall.
Don’t Endorse Any Candidates
Huge interest in the election can create the evil temptation of being an insider. Here is how you can avoid this: Don’t Endorse. I have hosted shows, I have met candidates, and I have favored one over the other. It is human nature. We like to think that our choice means something. It doesn’t.
You want to be humbled? Endorse someone and watch them crash and burn.
I love giving this example: Before I arrived in the market, the afternoon drive host had a bee up his butt to defeat the sitting U.S. Senator. He was right. The Senator was a load who did not advance the values that he was running on. So, the afternoon drive guy talked some moron into running. Primary day happened and the incumbent received over 76% of the vote. The afternoon drive guy showed that he was a blowhard who did not have the pulse of the community and state. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Senator pulled $100,000 worth of advertising from the cluster.
So, the afternoon guy who loved to think that he was some sort of super conservative who spoke for the people? Well, he promoted a loser and lost the company a ton of money. Don’t be that guy. It is a losing proposition almost every time.
Don’t Fraternize
If you are invited to a function, don’t become the friend of those that you are covering. A frequent complaint of Washington DC media is that they are too close to elected officials. It is true.
When I was on the air, I had some rules. I did not attend parties at the Capitol. I received many invites and generally never attended unless it was around the Inauguration of a Governor. Your job is to ask the questions that your audience wants you to ask. You can’t be tough if they are your friends. I have told elected officials this and it is a good rule of thumb for you to emulate: “My Job is to represent my community. I will ask hard questions because I don’t represent you, the elected official, I represent my listeners first.”
I have heard politicians wince at a question. I don’t care. When I was a producer earlier in my career, I always told the host that you can’t allow the politicians just to serve up generalities or no answers. Make them squirm. That is how you get the truth.
Don’t Lie
During Primary and General Election campaigns, there is a lot of crap served up. Even if you agree with the politician, don’t allow them to get away with it. Avoid people shoveling feces, we have all developed sources over the years. Every source has a motivation. There are some of these people who are honest brokers. You need a lot of wisdom to find out what the truth is.
I have this rule: Even if you trust your source, find a second. You probably know people who understand the situation. If you can’t confirm it, I generally avoid it.
Once, a mayor was running for re-election in my area. He was a charismatic self-promoter who was almost impossible not to like. There was a story that he had pulled strings for his high school daughter to avoid punishment from the elected school district Superintendent. I spoke with at least four educators at the high school, and I probably would have ignored the story until I spoke with the Superintendent. I knew many of the details and the school district Superintendent lied his ass off to me. Well, that is all that I needed to know the truth.
I went to the market manager and told him that I was going with the story. He asked me if we would be sued? Who the hell knew? I called the Mayor a few times and did not get a return call. People can sue over anything these days. So, I told the market manager that the story I was going to present was just missing a dot on an I and a cross on a T. He told me to go with it. I did. The mayor lost his election.
I was at a community event a couple of months after the election and the mayor was there. I went up to him and had a brief conversation. The mayor assured me that his child was punished for her misbehavior. I told him that the story was not personal, it was business. I told him that I liked him. The mayor was taken aback. Tell the truth. It is always good.
This election season, think about your audience first. Tell them the truth. Your job is not to represent the powerful but to defend the people. The people are responsible for your ratings, the people are responsible for your show’s revenue, and the people are who we serve. Don’t fall into temptation. Telling the truth is not always easy. The truth can just piss people off. But at the end of the day, we are here to tell the truth. Don’t lie to yourself. It’s the worst lie that can ever be told.
Peter Thiele is a weekly news/talk radio columnist for Barrett Media, and an experienced news/talk radio programmer. He currently serves as News/Talk Format Captain for Zimmer Communications. Prior to joining Zimmer, Peter held programming positions in New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, Little Rock, Greenville, Hunstville, and Joplin. Peter has also worked as a host, account executive and producer in Minneapolis, and San Antonio. He can be found on Twitter at @PeterThiele.
