"King is defintely not right-wing." Some right-wingers are normatives, maybe most. Some left-wingers are normative, maybe most. That is, if by right-wing and left-wing you refer to the political left and right, as opposed to an ideological left (Rousseau) or right (St. Augustine). "The dominant medium in our world is TV, not radio. TV talk show hosts (morning, prime time, and cable) are almost uniformly "left of center" (if not definitely left-wing)." Presuming you are referring again to the politcal left (rather than to normatives-versus-humanists a la Tomkins), I do believe you could make such a statement only if you are unfamilar what a left-wing political view looks like. You seem to be using the dominant media's portrayal of what a left-winger is in order to say that the media is predomiantly left wing. You thus reveal yourself to be far to the right to think the media is predominantly left. See http://www.takebackthemedia.com/xmas.html "Conservative talk show hosts have been relegated to the less powerful medium of radio. They have found a niche there." This conclusion does not have a time perspective over the decades. TV has moved so far to the right in recent decades such that what used to be called right-wing is now called liberal. Thus, TV today is very right-wing in all its features except for an occasional conference presentation or book review or interview on CNN's C-Span. "But the power of radio talk show hosts is a great deal les than their TV counterparts." TV is extremely successful in promoting the public's predominantly right-wing views. It is so successful that what used to be called right wing and conservative is now called liberal by the dominant media. Do you recall Scoop Jackson? Nelson Rockerfeller? Jerry Ford? They were called conservative and right wing. Mosts so-called liberals today would rejoice in having men like these are their side! Who are called conservative and right wing today? What would today's right wingers say about these three gentleman, Ford, Rockerfeller, and Jackson? "There are still left of center radio personalities, but many have chosen not to bother with radio." Believe me, these talk-show personalities do not themselves CHOOSE much about what they will "bother with" when they are job hunting. Rush Limbaugh is an excepton. He can choose not to be on TV. He is rich enough and powerful enough to have a lot of freedom to choose as he pleases. The rest of them take what jobs they can get. And the jobs they are going to get are determined by the market forces that dictate whose opinions are going to attract the largest audiences. The people who run TV and radio shows are pure-grade business-minded money makers selling advertisements. And if they aren't, you can be darn sure their creditors and bankers ARE! They hire the talking heads that they believe will bring them the largest audiences--so they can charge the most money for the kind of business they run--selling advertisements. The audiences determine which talkers will be talking and what they will be allowed to talk about if they want to keep talking for a paycheck. "...it takes a strong, polarizing position to get a response from a largely apathetic public." Well, that should clearly tell you something about the public, then, given that the public is so much more responsive to right-wingers. If the public were not so much more responsive to right wingers, the right-wing talkers would be out of a job talking to the public. Clearly, the public wants to listen to right-wing brand of polarized views for the most part. And that fits another observation. After all, didn't the public just give Republicans a massively one-sided election victory?
to find out more of what I'm talking about.
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