Too odd to let pass without notice

Jerry Springer, the man who made his name with a trash TV show featuring left-handed incestuous midgets proclaiming "I'm Not the Mother of My Baby!" has a new radio talk show. And guess what:

Springer promised to provide unabashed liberal views to counter the positions of President Bush in the first airing Monday of his radio show in Cincinnati, where he once served as mayor.

Springer, who will continue to host his more raucous TV show, called the war in Iraq immoral, saying it appeared to be focused on determining whether Iraq's Shiite majority or Sunni minority will be in charge as the country tries to grow into independence.

"Would you be willing to have your son or daughter die for that?" Springer said.

I wonder if there is some possibility of the pendulum swinging back. One of the things that drove the growth of right-wing talk radio was the sense among its audience that "the liberals run everything." (Actually, originally it was more like "government" or the even more vaguely defined "bureaucracy" was the source of all that was troubling them. As long as the supposedly liberal Dummycrats had a majority in Congress it was possible to equate "government" with "liberals." Now that that's no longer possible, the line of attack has shifted from "government" to the free-floating "liberals" being at fault for everything.) That doesn't mean it was true, of course, only that there was an audience eager to hear someone who could give them an easy focus for their anxiety.

But another factor was the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which for nearly 40 years required broadcasters to provide some balance in their coverage of public affairs and allow for a range of voices. In 1987, the Reagan-appointed majority on the FCC dumped the requirement and Reagan vetoed legislation to reimpose it. Central to the argument for dismissing the rule was the claim by corporate broadcasters that they could be trusted to provide - you'll pardon the expression - "fair and balanced" coverage on their own.

That notion should have raised a lot more suspicions at the time than it did (Why are you spending years and millions of dollars lobbying against a rule that only tells you to do what you say you'd do anyway?), but it helped sway the argument. Freed of any constraints, radio networks in particular started going with programming that was cheap and marketable and thus quite profitable, with the result that right-wing talk radio blossomed from late-night chatter about UFOs and 666 into the phenomenon we know now, as the corporations proved that their commitment to diversity was - gasp who would have believed it - just PR bullshit.

But the market - The Market - still works for them. One of the big reasons that left-wing talk radio has mostly been a flop is that while it's been left-wing and talk, it hasn't been radio. That is, it just hasn't been that interesting to listen to. It's important to remember that Rush Limburger was a radio man long before he became a right-wing hit man. He knows the medium and he knows how to use it. Most lefty attempts to compete relied on political personalities - Mario Cuomo, for example - which made for informative but very dull radio.

Air America - which to my mind is safely Democratic liberal rather than truly left - has tried to combat that by combining known names with radio people in a mix that works sometimes and not others and it still struggling to get real market traction. There are others out there, genuinely lefty people doing talk radio, but it's mostly regional if not actually local and they are names of which very few have heard.

(I think I'm going to make a project of trying to find some of them who stream their shows on the internet. Once I get a few, I'll post them here - maybe, if it's not too bulky, in a permanent right-column box. So if you have anyone to contribute - and know I will listen to them a few times before I put their names up - either put them in comments or email me.)

But Jerry Springer. Hmmm. A known name with both media and political experience. Right now, the show is apparently local, just Cincinnati, but hey, if it gets attention, it might make some media honchos take notice of the fact that now that we - the left - are on the outside, there might be a nicely exploitable market of liberal anger. And then the pendulum really would be starting on its overdue return swing.