Will someone please tell Ed Shouts to STOP. BELLOWING. FER. GAWD'S. SAKE.

[omega minimo]

The "homage" on the Stephanie Miller show makes the point. Why does "progressive talk radio" need a Limbaugh clone? Thought that's what progressive radio was about-- an alternative to all the blowhard bullshit artists.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. Ed shouts is a douchebag.

Anyway, there are plenty of "blowhard bullshit artist" progressives.

[omega minimo]

3. He's a big

posse.



"Anyway, there are plenty of "blowhard bullshit artist" progressives."

Only one sounds like Limbaugh. :thumbsdown: C'mon haruka, tell him to QUIT BELLOWING!!!!!!!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. It doesn't matter if he sounds like Limbaugh or not.

Plenty of progressives are blowhard bullshit artists.

[omega minimo]

6. It does if they want people to listen to him

Now, go back to the hive, dear H3_2. :hi: It's giggle time.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

7. What's the hive, my dearest omega?

Have a blessed day.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

10. Not me.

I'm a soft-spoken bullshit artiste.

An important distinction.

;-)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

11. ...

:spray:

:rofl:

[rpannier]

2. Not to sound ignorant, but...

who is Ed Shouts?
I live overseas so I miss her show sometimes.
I love Stephanie though.

[omega minimo]

5. Ed Schultz. Steph's commercials been playing a snip where Voice Deity Jim Ward

does a bombastic impression of Ed Schultz and they insist it's an "homage, not making fun."

The guy is a blowhard. Air America fizzled and local "progressive" stations preempt Malloy for hockey games and Hartmann gets bounced around and replaced with Schultz!. :evilfrown:

[OnyxCollie]

9. It's Ed Schultz.

The promo being referred to on the Stephanie Miller show has Stephanie doing an impression of Randi Rhodes in rant mode and Jim (I assume) doing an impression of Ed Schultz.

I listen to Ed, and having worked in commercial radio, I can tell you why he sounds the way he does: 'Cause it works.

Commercial radio is all about copying a successful formula, and if Limpballs can be on as long as he has, you can be damn sure someone else is going to try the same thing. As a broadcaster, Ed Schultz does a good job. The show is tight and flows well. He gets important guests (good time slot), manages to have a relaxed conversation with them, and in general, he conveys a lot of information. Sure, his shtick gets on my nerves every once in a while, and I disagree with some of his opinions, but you could do a lot worse than Ed Schultz.

I never listened to Rush, so I wasn't really aware of the similarity. Last week, when my Air America affiliate was preempted by basketball and NPR had their pledge drive, I was scanning through the stations trying to find anything about the CIA leak hearings. I heard Valerie Plame's testimony and stopped. Turned out to be Limpballs. So, I listened to his show for the first time and was struck by how stupid his callers are. One female caller, for whom I expect would consider smoking two cigarettes down to the filter during her 15 minute break at the box factory "a significant achievement", announced she was a long-time listener, had been listening for 19 years, and next year would (get this), make it 20.

Wow. C'mon. Fess up. Someone helped you with that, right?

Next, Limpballs takes a call from a stammering Beavis/Butthead who manages to say that he tries to emulate Rush. Beavis/Butthead struggles to ask Rush if he thinks it's wrong to question Al Gore on his energy usage while Rush is "living large". Limpballs berates the kid for questioning his character, then flips the argument to say he has earned all his extravagances and why should he be denied his pleasures? I can only imagine the slow-witted mouth-breathers hollering at their radios in approval.

[omega minimo]

12. Works for who?

"I listen to Ed, and having worked in commercial radio, I can tell you why he sounds the way he does: 'Cause it works."

Yes and it's claimed on the network he's the "most popular" something or other..... maybe so. But there must be plenty of people interested in the info and guests, whose choices have been truncated by recent national broadcasting shifts, who find it IMPOSSIBLE to listen to Schultz bellowing, even when trying. Do that many "progressive" listeners really want to listen to a blowhard, a Limbaugh clone for "our" side? No.

"Sure, his shtick gets on my nerves every once in a while, and I disagree with some of his opinions, but you could do a lot worse than Ed Schultz."

Actually, last week trying to listen to ES drove me to tune in the "real" Limbaugh. For a few minutes I found RL's "schtick" more interesting to listent to because of how insanely and craftily he weaves the truth and lies together-- along with the bombastic bullying-- to build his bamboozled listener's egos.

Maybe that's all it is, eh? Warring egos. :boring: There's a huge audience that doesn't need someone on the radio YELLING AT THEM.

[OnyxCollie]

14. To each their own.

You have already solved your problem. Change the station, listen to something else. Or do you feel you need to have him removed from his job? Curious, do you dislike the message, or do you dislike the delivery? This reminds me of the Codepink debate that was on this board over the weekend.

I listen to progressive radio all day. Some of the shows, from a broadcaster's point of view, are a trainwreck. The Young Turks barely rises above college radio. Al Franken, as informative as he was, had all the panache of sheetrock. Drive time DJ's and talk radio hosts sound the way they do because it gets good ratings. You may disagree, but you are a sample of one...

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. To be fair, Franken is more a Midwestern, public affairs guy -- think Garrison Kiellor

Especially Garrison Kiellor in "Midwestern deadpan" mode.

Come to think of it, is Garrison Kiellor's "Writers Almanac" still on the air
at 6 AM? I always loved that.

I love that and I love Ed Schultz -- see? I can go either way.

People expecting Franken to be bombastic and partisan like (let's be
honest here) Randy Rhodes and all the other talkers are being unfair.

Why can't he be quiet and different? Why should everything be the same
simply in order to copy a proven formula?

One lefty talker who sounds like Ed is enough. Similarly I don't need to hear Rachel Maddow when I can listen to NPR's Fresh Air or Democracy Now and get the same dry passive-aggressive dressing-down in the same tone of voice.

[OnyxCollie]

16. I agree with you on everything.

It's getting warm here in lovely Ohio (38 degrees today! Whoohoo!), but can I expect to hear The Jesse Jackson show blasting out of car stereos on a Sunday morning? Not likely. In fact, I'm not likely to hear Air America blasting out of any car stereos at any time. Let's check the ratings for the Air America affiliate (WARF) that plays Ed Schultz here in Ohio. According to http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRRatings/DetailsPage.aspx?MID=2&RY=2007&RQ=1&MP=1&OTHER=2&MN=Akron=OH=73&12P=599000&UP=3/6/2007&SU=CM&BPER=10.9&HPER=&OPER=&NSD=4/4/2007&CE=0"> Radio & Records, WARF is currently at .4 with a high rating of 1.0 in the summer of '06. Pretty pathetic. That's the whole problem with commercial radio. Its inherent design, i.e. bringing an audience to a sponsor, does not directly translate in what may be considered "progressive" radio programming. It's the tried & true if you expect to see any ratings.

I worked at a commercial modern rock radio station in Cleveland during the '90's. I did weekends for five years and produced my own two hour electronic music show for over two years. I had carte blanche to play whatever I wanted, and would use the opportunity to weave the songs into a story. Without my show, I would have been bored out of my mind. "Say something interesting about Nirvana for the thousandth time." When the station was sold and the format changed, the sound board was torn up to accomodate a large computer that would scroll through songs programmed by the headquarters in Detroit. That's when I decided to hang it up and move on.

Edit: HTML

[OnyxCollie]

18. I should clarify "progressive".

I mean programming that exceeds the boundaries of conventional (stagnant) radio formats, not necessarily political thought.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. Yeahj, they're doing the same thing with music here in DC area

Indie rock was already done for, but classical took a big hit recently
when public-radio WETA moved to robot-radio format and ditched their longtime lite night folk-bluegrass diva (Mary Cliff) who played
protest songs, labor music, spirituals, childrens songs, etc.
She also used to do prog rock for commercial radio in the 1970s.
It was the one thing I still liked about local NPR. Fortunately
she got picked up by a smaller public radio station, but for a
smaller time slot.

The one commercial classical station was bought out (against the
wishes of management, which went over to WETA) for a huge price,
so Dan Snyder, the owner of the Redskins, could have his own
personal radio station.

[omega minimo]

21. As mentioned above

the choices in the market have been de-Air America-ed and messed with, choices limited, bloody SPORTS taking over where progressive voices were before.... and who has the big morning slot? Ed Shouts.

As mentioned above I would like to listen for the info and the guests, but the shouting makes it impossiible.

"Curious, do you dislike the message, or do you dislike the delivery?"

Curious, that you would ask that, since it's been addressed repeatedly above. IT'S THE BELLOWING, BOMBASTIC, BELLICOSE BULLSHIT.

*

Even so, I tried to listen today-- being another historic day in a historic week and had the radio on at work-- and found that the bellowing serves a purpose-- just as it does with Limbaugh: it's a pose to intimidate and cover the enormous holes in the logic of this "progressive." He's no progressive. He just bellows and dares someone to call and disagree with him. Just like with Limbaugh, his callers are dittoheads and there really isn't much back and forth; just Atta Boys and Hell Yeahs. YeeeeeeEEEEeee Haw. His reasoning is oversimplistic and gets people all worked up about the right things in the wrong way, really dumbing down the process.

Wel fine. Except it also adds to the already divisive, hostile bellowing and black and white thinking (largely thanks to Limbaugh) that pass for political discourse-- and encourages people to just shout to make a point and dare someone to say anything back which AUTOMATICALLY is gonna be a challenge, right boys?!!!! More opinion over fact, emotional jousting versus bringing people and ideas together.

Maybe it's a regional thing, but I am not "a sample of one." There are plenty of listeners who aren't gonna tune in to be yelled at.

Your professional experience suggests that "what works" is all about the ratings and the $$$. That may be so and a "popular" voice like Ed Shouts may draw listeners who like to be bullied into oversimplified logic and emotional arguments-- just like the Limbot he's patterning himself after-- but that ain't progressive and that ain't tapping into the market that wants an alternative. It is a disservice to the political causes that it pretends to serve.

[Southsideirish]

8. I still like him 100 times better than all the wingnut radio idjits we have

on AM radio here in Chicago from one end of the dial to the other.

[Norquist Nemesis]

13. Same here!

Also from Chicagoland :hi:

Like blackops said, sometimes he's gets on my nerves, too. My hubby always pokes fun at me for listening to a guy that sounds like Limbaugh. :eyes: I keep telling him it's not all about Schultz and what he says, but I like to hear what the callers are saying.

[blogslut]

17. Ed Shouts

heehee

That's funny. :)

[omega minimo]

22. WHY THANK YOU VERY MUCH BLOGSLUT!!!!1111!!!!1

:spray: :toast:

[tinfoilinfor2005]

19. I like Big Eddie...

:hide:

[lonestarnot]

20. Just turn it off.

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. Did something happen to AAR Network?

I thought Franken found two brothers to invest in it.