Talk Radio as Wrestlemania
Did anyone else listen to the on-air fight between Mark Levin, a talk radio host, and David Frum? The subject is Rush Limbaugh’s place in the Republican Party, but that is beside the point. The exchange is interesting insofar as it lays bare the flaws of talk radio as a format.
How?
Let me count the ways.
1) Mr. Levin ridicules Mr. Frum for writing on a Web site whose audience isn’t very big, which is hilarious to listen to now that Newsweek put the exact same argument on its cover.
2) The actual disagreement among the two men isn’t ever fleshed out because the host continually interjects points utterly irrelevant to the conversation. It’s a common enough tactic in political arguments, but this iteration is strikingly blatant.
3) Is there anything less sporting than instructing one’s producer to lower the volume on your interlocutor so that he literally cannot be heard by the audience? You’d think getting caught doing so would be deeply embarrassing to a talk radio host, but Mr. Levin does it openly!
To be fair, Mr. Levin defends cutting his guest’s microphone, asserting that as host he has a responsibility to his audience, whereas Mr. Frum, as a caller, hasn’t any responsibility whatever. I harbor suspicions that this is a less than forthright description of what was really going on, but let’s afford everyone the benefit of every doubt.
In that spirit, I wonder if Mr. Levin would be interested in debating Mr. Limbaugh’s place in the GOP here on The American Scene. We could each write an initial blog post laying out our respective views, and then each of us could rebut one another. Of course, I have a responsibility to the audience of this blog in a way that Mr. Levin does not, so I’m sure he won’t object to ground rules that allow me to delete any portions of his post that I find wrongheaded or otherwise objectionable prior to my posting them, and without offering any particular justification; whereas my arguments will appear entirely unmediated.
As anyone can see, those ground rules are laughable if the intention is to give a fair airing to competing arguments. But wait! If talk radio hosts haven’t any intention of staging fair arguments, preferring fodder that resembles Wrestlemania more than debate, what is the point?
The only point is entertainment. And that is fine, as far as it goes, but my sense is that the talk radio audience too often regards their host as a reliable filter and arbiter of political arguments, a role that neither suits him nor the incentive structure wherein he operates. It’s no wonder that elsewhere in the radio exchange, Mr. Levin betrays insecurity about his rhetorical chops, loudly insisting that he’ll put his learning up against anyone. I’ve no doubt that he is an intelligent man. Seriously. But the stranglehold he has on the medium, and his willingness to exploit it, results in a conversation where he can appear to his audience to have won the day without having to make any intelligent points, a dearth that hardly redounds to one’s reputation.
I heard the radio exchange. I like Levin generally, but Frum had to be continually cut off or lowered in volume because he wouldn’t shut up and respond except by making long speeches that were filibusters. I would have slapped him if we’d been in the same room and he pulled that crap on me in an argument or discussion.
Maybe it’s an East Coast thing or a Jewish thing, but I find people who run their mouths like that and never actually engage an argument to be obnoxious. They don’t deserve a fair hearing because they’re the only ones who get heard. Frum’s arrogance ws disgusting. Levin was easy on the guy.
— johnmark7 · Mar 11, 08:47 AM · #
So CF, you argue that Levin’s less than purely even-handed handling of Frum lays bare the failure of talk radio as a format. That argument might prove convincing if you could show me the purely even-handed benchmark you’re measuring it against.
— Douglas · Mar 11, 02:33 PM · #
A “reliable filter,” indeed. The volume knob on your interlocutor’s mic.
— Matt Feeney · Mar 11, 02:48 PM · #
Douglas, I’m measuring it against formats wherein neither party to an argument controls the medium — a back and forth on blogs, a debate with two participants and a moderator, etc. On talk radio, the host has so much control over the format that abuse of power is almost inevitable.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Mar 11, 03:11 PM · #
My favorite was when Levin asked Frum how many books he sold – and then de facto accused the former speechwriter for Bush of being insignificant cause he hasn’t sold Sean Hannity level of book numbers.
You can be a narcissist, and you can be deeply insecure, but if you can be both you have a promising career in talk radio…
— Rortybomb · Mar 11, 05:15 PM · #