UK Guardian: The battle of the airwaves

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1175870,00.html

When the radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh stayed in the Lincoln Room in 1992, the president of the time, George Bush, personally carried his bags into the White House. When Republicans won the House of Representatives for only the second time in 50 years in 1994, Limbaugh was made an honorary member of Congress. Such is the power of talk radio in the United States, and such is its clout with the Republican establishment.

Now, however, America's left is fighting back. The end of this month sees the launch of Air America Radio: a liberal talkshow station broadcasting initially in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, and aiming to challenge Limbaugh on his own turf.

"Political talk radio has come to mean rightwing radio, but that doesn't have to be the case," says Al Franken, the comedian whose show will be the flagship of Air America (and who also happens to have written a book entitled Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot). "I plan to take what they say, use it against them and hold it up to scorn and ridicule. That's my job. That's what I do." Other presenters will include the rapper Chuck D, the actor Janeane Garofalo and Robert Kennedy Jr, an environmentalist and nephew of the former president, John F Kennedy.

The fact that the launch comes in the month that John Kerry secured the Democratic party's nomination is no coincidence: the mobilisation of the left on to the airways is, invariably, inextricably connected to the presidential race. Concerned by the power of the conservative media both on radio and cable television, and having witnessed the rise of the ultra-conservative Murdoch channel Fox News, Democrats have been eager to appeal to their grassroots support and set the agenda.