by Tara Servatius
Last week, I had a life changing experience. I listened to talk radio as a true listener. I hadn?t been on the air in about a week and a half and for the first time in years I wasn?t closely following the news. Instead, I?d been knee-deep in my other jobs and taking care of the kids ? just like everyone else. I turned on talk radio simply to find out what was going on and what people thought about it and nearly ended up tearing my hair out.
Hosts both local and national were talking about the big national story of the week, the debt ceiling battle. That was fine. It was one of the things I wanted to check in on. The problem was that they were all so deep into it that I had little idea what they were talking about. Many of them were talking about ?Cut, cap and balance,? as if I should know what the heck that was. (None of the hosts ever told me, so I Googled it and determined it was a bill by some in the GOP).
These hosts threw around numbers, names and minutia from committee meetings. One played audio from a GOP politician he was mad at over something that had happened with the debt debate. I was never clear on exactly what that was because the host assumed that I knew. It was clear that many of these hosts weren?t happy with President Obama, the Democrats and some in the Republican Party over whatever was going on with the debt ceiling negotiations. That came through just fine. But what the heck was going on? That eluded me completely. After a while, I grew so frustrated listening that I began to wonder how long it would take before someone explained what was going on with the debt negotiations in simple terms.
Part of the problem was that I was driving from place to place and talking to my child in the back seat occasionally. I wasn?t listening with my full attention all the time, but then again, neither do most people. I listened to hours of talk radio over several days during that time, and only once did someone ? Michael Smerconish ? reset for me and explain exactly what the options on the table were in simple enough terms that I could get it while negotiating traffic.
Everyone else presumed I?d spent the last 23 hours watching FOX news or CNN and knew exactly what was going on down to the smallest detail. Once I understood what was going on, I instantly had an opinion. It tripled my interest in the topic. I could have participated in a conversation about it if it came up and sounded halfway intelligent, and did repeat what I had heard to several people later that day. And I wanted to talk about it. I was now part of the club that got what was going on.
That?s what good news talk radio should do in very small amounts of time. Provide a service. Give me the news, or boil it down quickly so people who don?t have time to read an article or watch a whole news segment about it can get what?s going on in the world in between conversations with their child. Talk radio is editorial journalism in its simplest form. It should include the who, what, where and when before the why and it should include it often and in simple terms because listeners come to us for that first. If I?m driving 15 minutes to my destination and I?m distracted a quarter of the time and you haven?t reset at least twice, you have lost me. Last week, for the first time ever, news talk radio did just that. If I was that frustrated, I can?t imagine what it was like for an FM listener stumbling upon news talk for the first time because the AM talker in town just bought an FM station to broadcast on. They?d have been baffled. Lost. And we might have even lost them.
Tara Servatius was a drivetime News/Talk host at NewsTalk 1110 WBT in Charlotte. She was recently exiled.
Reach out to her at her website www.taraservatius.com. Twitter Tara @TaraServatius Facebook
(7/28/2011 1:24:13 PM)
Almost forgot to mention the following:
Democrats and Republicans in Washington are talking about making tough choices when in fact they both desire that our nation be at war opposing nations that are non-hostile.
An independent study has concluded the real cost of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc., to be at around 8 trillion dollars.
Tara, do you see my point? Talk radio ignores the real issues.
Tara like the majority of other talk show listeners is a victim of political manipulation.
The Republican and Democrat leaders arbitrarily decide what the issues are going to be no matter if they have any merit whatsoever.
Tara and the rest of the dying number of talk show listeners need to look at global picture and decide is the topic worth listening to or is it simply a mountain out of a mole hill topic story.
Regarding this issue "debt ceiling" it's all hype being done with smoke and mirrors.
Tara needs to understand that the real issue that deserves her attention is the long term US policy of off-shoring millions of US jobs. Under the nefarious Republican/Democrat leadership we continue to lose more and more jobs because the globalist corporations are only concerned with increasing their profits and our political leaders will not take a stand.
Further, you have leadership that is allowing millions more jobs to be taken away by illegal immigrants.
Tara like millions of other naive Americans need to step back and realize what they are hearing on corporate radio reflects what big business wants and not what is best for middle class America.
Tara, my reocmmendation is that you listen to internet talk host, Alex Jones and then report back to me what are the issues of the day.
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