Christian radio website to maximize hosts’ heft

A former Bush campaign official will be helping Salem Communications become the official radio propaganda voice of the Republicans. I have to give them credit for finding a way to use a radio network to get free advertising. I suppose Fox News is the official Republican TV voice, so Salem will be a nice radio fit for them. Plus they'll have the added benefit of gawd and jay-sus.

All of this would actually be amusing, except for the fact that radio and TV licenses are regulated by the government. There are a fixed number of frequencies available, so it's not the kind of business where you or I could just start a radio station, like we would open a McDonald's. Long ago, the FCC realized the importance of broadcasters in shaping public opinion. They had regulations that prevented sinister broadcasters from manipulating, and even brainwashing the public. There were, and probably still are, rules preventing non U.S. citizens from owning broadcasting properties, which is the reason Rupert Murdoch had to become an American citizen before he could own Fox.

As an aside, I guess the FCC felt that foreign ownership of the media was a bigger issue than foreign ownership of U.S. ports. The concern of unscrupulous broadcasters exerting undue influence on viewers and listeners is why they had clear rules separating commercials from opinions, or regular programming. That's why you used to hear disclaimers like "This is a paid announcement" before commercials that were designed to look like news or informational programming. But in today's world, it's okay to try to manipulate the public by "working with" broadcast operations. And why not? This is an administration who paid commentators to say favorable things about them. They sent out canned news reports featuring their own paid reporters, disguised as "features" or items that were newsworthy. So it only makes sense that they would use Salem Broadcasting for their own political gain.

Christian radio website to maximize hosts'’ heft: "Chuck DeFeo, who was Bush-Cheney 2004 e-campaign manager and served in a similar role at the Republican National Committee in 2002, is helping Salem promote activism among listeners.

Next week, Salem is expected to launch a website featuring the hosts of five major radio talk shows: “Morning in America with Bill Bennett, “The Mike Gallagher Show,” The Dennis Prager Show, “The Michael Medved Show” and “The Hugh Hewitt show. These are estimated to attract more than ten million listeners, DeFeo said in an interview.

His new website, beyondthenews.com, is intended to give the hosts “"an online platform to move from radio to Internet to get active".”

The purpose is to build a powerful online activist community from the large nationwide audience of conservative radio listeners. Political observers say Democrats have thus far been more effective then Republicans at using the Internet to raise money and mobilize supporters.

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Organizers of the effort regard talk radio as a ‚“one-way street‚” where a host urges listeners to do something but receives little feedback from the audience. The website would combine the established power of talk radio with the emerging phenomenon of blogging to create a two-way street that would allow radio personalities and fans to interact more.