Talkin’ Radio Blues

Before this assignment I hadn’t listened to any talk radio since the radio in my car stopped working over a year ago, yet after five minutes of the Todd Schnitt show I’d had enough. I didn’t stop listening though, over the past 3 days I have listened to the Schnitt show, Hannity and even Coast to Coast with George Noory as I’ve worked on homework in my apartment, occasionally picking up the phone to call in when I had a strong opinion on a topic.

Because I don’t have a working car radio, nor a radio in my home I was stuck listening to what I could find streaming on the internet, which limited me mainly to inflammatory conservative shows such as Schnitts and Hannitys. Though I had planned on calling conservation shows because I thought I would have more to argue with the hosts about (anger is the objective after all…) I probably would have opted for smaller, local shows had they been available to me. I believe that I would have experienced greater success with my call-ins if this were the case.

Though I initially thought that I would constantly be motivated to call and argue against the host’s views, I was surprised to find that this wasn’t the case. Not to say that I didn’t disagree with a great majority of what Schnitt and Hannity were saying, I did, but the way that they responded to callers who disagreed was very discouraging. After listening to Schnitt repeatedly cut-off and talk over his ideological opponents it became increasingly obvious that these sort of shows were meant to be a one-sided argument. I cannot count how many times I heard these hosts talk over a caller until there was no time left for the caller to make a coherent argument. However I was required to call in, so that’s what I did.

Every time I heard something I felt strongly about, or wanted to call the host out on I would call in repeatedly. Over and over I got dial tones and endless ringing. I stayed on the line for over five minutes the first time, but after that I would hang up and try again after about a minute or so of ringing. I called the Schnitt show so many times that I saved the number into my contacts so I wouldn’t have to dial it every time. Even so, out of all the calls that I made, I only got through to a screener once.

After hearing Todd Schnitt claim that the Hutaree Christian terrorist group raided by the FBI represented only a tiny fringe group “unlike Muslims” (essentially suggesting that a large amount of Muslims are supportive of terrorism.) I was ready to give him a piece of my mind. I dialed his number and was extremely surprised when someone picked up on the other end after only 2 or 3 tries. I proceeded to explain to the screener that I intended to point out the prejudice connotations of Schnitt’s remark and remind him of our countries sordid history with a Christian terrorist group known as the Klu Klux Klan. Apparently that wasn’t enough, I was told that they weren’t taking calls on that subject anymore, oddly enough about ten minutes later they aired someone who called in to agree with Schnitt on that subject.

I was angered by my experience to say the least, but I can’t say that I didn’t expect things to go that way. I suppose If I ever have to do this sort of thing again I’ll call smaller shows whose phone lines aren’t so busy. Maybe I’ll call someone I agree with, it seems like I’d have a better chance of getting on air that way.