Former WRAL boss: GOP needs to ‘shoot’ Limbaugh
Yep, that’s right. Jim Hefner used to call the shots at WRAL. Now he teaches ”the practice of journalism” at UNC. Here he is in the money-bleeding, 
gasping-for-its-final-breaths Charlotte Observer:
Sometimes you have to shoot your own dog.
And that’s just what the Republican establishment needs to do.
And, no, Donald Trump is not the dog.
But we’ll start with a dog.
If you are of a certain age, you will remember the movie “Old Yeller,” set in post-Civil War Texas. Yeller, a yellow Labrador retriever, contracts rabies after defending his adopted family from a wolf. The mouth-foaming, vicious pet is now a threat to the family.
Sometimes you have to shoot your own dog.
Now think about the current state of the GOP. It has a Trump problem. Party leaders are scratching their collective heads trying to figure out how Trumpism came to be. They might just turn on the radio to get some answers.
Tune into the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck. Turn to the other conservative talkers who clog the radio dial these days. There you will hear the hosts defend the conservative family of thought with evermore corrosive, extreme and strident diatribes.
Interesting. The SAME sensitive crowd that pines sentimentally over The First Amendment — i.e., refusing to stand for the national anthem or the pledge of allegiance — is casting fire and brimstone over a guy with a radio show. MORE:
Hour after hour. Day after day. For decades, now. What are listeners hearing? More often than not, what they hear is who to blame for their problems.
And who is listening? Trump supporters. White men. They have been told over and over and over again they should be angry. Be angry with illegal immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Feminazis. Liberals. Even the Republican establishment.
Our government handed billions of dollars’ worth of our public radio airways over to these hosts 30 years ago. In 1987, under the pressure of corporate broadcasters, the Republican-controlled Federal Communication Commission (FCC) stopped enforcing the Fairness Doctrine. Later Congress tried to reinstate the doctrine, only to fail due to a President Reagan veto.
Before that, and beginning in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to present both sides of controversial issues. The idea behind the doctrine: The public owns the airways and if you hold a license to broadcast, you cannot put controversial speech on the air without opposing points of view.
Political talk radio – conservative or progressive – could not pass muster under such a doctrine. Could Rush Limbaugh do his shtick if he had to interview Planned Parenthood’s head to balance a segment? A gay rights advocate? A Democrat?
The winners here are clear – enriched conservative talkers, their production companies, and corporate broadcasters. After all, that is what conservative talk radio is all about. Money. It sells to the listeners and the advertisers. What it is not about is the public interest.
Let’s see. The Fairness Doctrine was out when the media was firmly in the control of The Left. You had three networks, plus NPR and PBS. THAT was it. Those five are still here, but struggling in the face of all kinds of competition via cable and The Internet. (Our tax dollars are keeping NPR and PBS afloat.) The Internet and the blogosphere are KILLING the Charlotte and Raleigh papers and the rest of the driveby media. Innovation and the market have created a lot of options.
Consumers have a choice between (a) the liberal crap dished out by WRAL, The Charlotte Observer and the rest of the driveby media, or (b) a multitude of options across the spectrum offered by the Internet and cable TV and satellite radio. And they’re choosing (b) with a vengeance. Give the people what they want, and you prosper. Keep lying to them and insulting their intelligence — like the now defunct Air America, and the dying McClatchy dynasty — and you’ll keep bleeding. MORE:
[…] Even in days of specialized social media and myriad sources of digital information, the public airwaves are still the public airwaves. The U.S. government issues radio and TV licenses. To get a license, you should have to be “fair and balanced,” borrowing the Fox News slogan.
Trump is the wrong target for Republican leaders. Unrelenting conservative talk radio should be in the crosshairs. Right-wing radio is what created Trump or, at least, the opportunity for a Trump.
If your ideas are better, they will stand up to opposing points of view. If not, they will not. It’s called the marketplace of ideas.
Republican leaders surely benefit from Rush and his crowd. However, their pet is rabid. Now, the GOP is dealing with Donald Trump and a fractured party. Now, the party is losing control. Now, the Republicans should reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. They have the power to do so.
Sometimes you have to shoot your own dog. […]
It’s interesting how rowdy guys like this get when someone is saying something they disagree with. Instead of debating the matter, they want to stomp it out of existence.
Remember how driveby types like this Hefner guy were moaning about the violence at Trump rallies and suggesting he was inciting the violence? Remember how they jumped all over Sarah Palin for sending out a fundraising mailer with ”Bullseyes”’ over the faces of some Democrat politicians. (That was just before Gabby Giffords got shot.)
Even musing about the GOP presidential frontrunner being shot ought to get you a visit from The Secret Service. (Imagine the holy hell you would be facing if someone said something familiar about ol’ Barry.)
Words do have consequences. The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the Family Research Council as a ‘hate group.’ Yes, the same Christian pro-life group whose president is a close friend of Charlotte’s Rev. Mark Harris. A leftist nut went into the FRC’s Washington offices and tried to shoot everyone inside. A heroic security guard saved the day. The suspect said he was inspired by the ‘hate group’ designation. 
From the Baltimore riots, to the L.A. race riots, to the FRC debacle, to this latest idiocy from Hefner, leftists are fanning the flames of violence and destruction. And we on the right keep getting pegged as the violent ones.
I’m glad to debate the issues with anyone at any time at any place. The issues are not worth resorting to physical blows. (However, if you threaten me, my family, my friends, or my country with physical injury, you’ve got a different story.)
Ok, so this dude whines about what maybe 6 widespread national shows (Rush, Hannity, Levin, Beck, I am sure there are two others). How ’bout we just tally up the Conservative vs. radical leftist over the air outlets.
Conservative 7 – the above plus Fox News
radical leftist – almost infinity – CNN.ABC,PMSNBC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, all the local over the air newscasts,
How about newspapers?
Conservative – WSJ, the one Washington Paper that tells the truth
radical leftist – all the rest
So these goobers always whine when they do not have ALL of the outlets composing ALL the narrative. One good question to them is: Are you going to start requiring the radical leftist outlets to present diverse points of view? My guess is that they would say “they already do” which is a load of horse$#!+. Their only motive is to have the radical leftist progressive narrative as the only viewpoint available.
The reason we have Trump is no mystery except to academic and media morons. Look at the polls – over 70% of Republicans voters disapproving of GOP Congressional leadership and over 60% saying they are ”betrayed” by it, largely for sitting on its hands and not actively fighting Obama’s overreach. It is the fury over the inaction of our own Congressional leadership that has powered the Trump train. If we need to get rid of anybody, it is not talk radio. It is our do-nothing House and Senate GOP leadership. But I would not suggest shooting them. We made a start on that by dumping Eric Cantor in his primary, and now Paul Ryan has a serious conservative primary challenger. Ironically, when conservatives tried to dump Mitch McConnell in his primary last election, Donald Trump was among those establishment types to open his wallet to fund keeping McConnell. Maybe he strategically thought he needed to make sure the ire of GOP voters at the Congressional leadership to continue.
Yep, I absolutely agree… lots of talking heads and people who supposedly think about such things for a living seem to have really missed that boat on the entirely real and justified anger and frustration people feel about the “establishment” of the GOP.
Of course, that doesnt mean Trump is a reasonable or smart answer, cause, he’s not. He’s a horrible answer, actually, that undermines the argument that those grassroots actually “have” rational, consistent principles to be advocated for.
“They have been told over and over and over again they should be angry. Be angry with illegal immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Feminazis. Liberals. Even the Republican establishment.”
And, to varying degrees, those are all subjects where rational people can argue, disagree, and be angry about. What, then, is the problem with that?
“What it is not about is the public interest.”
But neither is the mainstream media that pretends to be objective, but isnt. I think that’s even worse, actually.
Yep, it’s a marketplace of ideas, and when the left isnt being artificially propped up by government power, it usually falls on its face. I’m not surprised that yet another liberal supports force over “actual” competition and free speech, either. 🙂
I agree… it’s why when the floodgates opened and people could “actually” choose how to receive and discuss current events many dropped the “big 3” networks for “news”, and it’s why I and a lot of other people don’t pay for a subscription for the biased garbage that is newspapers like the N&O or the Charlotte Observer, and it’s why Air America and Al Gore’s “network” are off the air, and why MSNBC is such a joke.
The idea that the left doesnt get it’s say and a fair shake is just absurd. Obama pushes that line a lot too… how many times have we heard him trot out the line that if he could just “explain” his ideas more, then everyone would “understand” and then they’d simply agree… *sheesh*
No, when your entire ideology is based in emotionalism and force against the individual, it’s not “evil talk radio” that’s keeping you from winning a debate. The main reason they even get a seat at the ideas table is because too many people dont pay enough attention to understand how ridiculous and full of it most of their ideas are.
“Could Rush Limbaugh do his shtick if he had to interview Planned Parenthood’s head to balance a segment? A gay rights advocate? A Democrat?”
Umm, “yes”. I havent listened to Rush in awhile, but back in the day… yep, he could have debated circles around most people on the left, because he was usually sound and informed on the issues and his judgement was mostly guided by actual principle.
And sorry, a Planned Parenthood head or any Democrat is not likely to make much of a point against someone like, say Ben Shapiro or even Mark Levin.
(Speaking of which… does this guy not understand that “conservative talk radio” is “also” quite divided over Trump?) Glen Beck and the two guys I just mentioned, for example… really, really dont like Trump.
Sorry for the length, btw. 🙂
“Glen Beck and the two guys I just mentioned, for example… really, really don’t like Trump.” Very few people really like Trump. He’s a desperate attempt to elect someone with gonads to stand up to the liberals. Maybe he won’t, but none of the others would, either. Electing Trump may turn out to be the wrong thing to do, but rewarding Republicans for screwing us over and over again is certainly not the right thing to do.
Have you ever looked at Trump’s political contribution history? He has given mega dollars to establishment candidates, mostly Democrat like Anthony Weiner, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton, but also to Obama Republicans like Mitch McConnell in his primary against conservatives. Despite massive contributions to the establishment, Trump has NOT been donating to challengers against the establishment. In fact, establishment figures from Jimmy Carter to John Boehner openly said they preferred Trump to Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz was the candidate who has the record of standing up to the establishment. Trump is all talk, and that talk is contradicted by his record of political contributions. Nonetheless, we are now stuck with him, and will have to make the best of it.