Study Says Print Media Cast Bad Light On Talk Radio
Talk radio is the domain of politically powerful kooks who like to stir up trouble and call people horrible names, right?
Newspaper and magazine readers might think so.
A new study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications says the print media portray talk radio as “scary and pernicious,” said communications Professor Joseph Turow. “The whole attitude toward talk radio is extremely negative in the media.”
It comes as no surprise which talk-show host takes the most media heat: Rush Limbaugh.
“He signified and embodied overall the print media’s negative tone about talk radio, which was furthered by spikes of controversy from G. Gordon Liddy and Bob Grant,” said Turow, one of three professors who worked on the study.
Stories about Limbaugh “had just an overall sense of unfavorableness about him, that the guy is brass, not accurate with the facts,” he added.
Limbaugh could not be reached for comment Monday, but he told his listeners last week that he was delighted with the study. He makes no secret of his dislike of the mainstream media, which he believes are biased against conservatives such as himself.
The study of political call-in shows examined the coverage of 16 national and nine local talk-show hosts between 1993 and 1995. Researchers analyzed articles from newspapers and magazines and listened to 105 hours of Limbaugh, the most mentioned political talk-show host, and 150 hours of other talk broadcasters.
They found that the print media’s attention to talk radio has skyrocketed since Limbaugh hit the airwaves in 1989. And the attention is mostly unfavorable.
“The mainstream media tend to portray political talk radio superficially and as powerful, pernicious and homogeneous,” the study concluded. “A reader of the mainstream press would find little in-depth analysis of the hosts or their programs.”
“In the press, talk radio is a domain of brash anger and bizarrely conservative behavior that is generally disconnected from mainstream politics,” it said.
Turow said: “We didn’t find nearly the kind of rabidity, anger and craziness that one might expect from the mainstream print media coverage of this.”
The survey cited the press’ repeated echoing of a few by-now-familiar remarks by Liddy (that threatening agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be shot) and Grant (who referred to some blacks as “savages” and former New York Mayor David Dinkins as a “washroom attendant”).
While those comments have entered into media lore, they are not the norm, the researchers said.
“I’m not excusing this kind of stuff,” Turow said. “Despite the horrible things that some people like Bob Grant have said, most talk radio is not of that vein. … The press tends to pick up on absolutely the worst aspect of it.”
The most targeted host is Limbaugh, who was mentioned in 20,799 stories. Liddy’s name appeared in 3,344 stories.
Listeners, too, are portrayed as crazies, the study said. However, the typical listener is “more likely than nonlisteners to consume all news media other than TV news, to be more knowledgeable and to be involved in political activities,” the survey said.
In other findings, the survey showed that local hosts got practically no coverage from their hometown newspapers and that the print media exaggerate talk radio’s political impact.
Turow’s advice to journalists is to ease up on the criticism and give a more balanced portrayal of talk radio. It “is a form of public conversation,” he said.