Politics and Society

Chronicle: Starting off, I listened to local AM Radio 950, Air America Minnesota for nearly an hour. What I heard a lot of was on the topic of ‘faith in the election process’. Also, nearly every other sentence on the show “Minnesota Matters� was a derogatory comment about a republican politician, or the entire party. During an advertisement, they used comments like “celebrate the end of right-wing trash talkers� for veterans to come to a dinner. Then, covering the news topics briefly, referred to some funding decision from the president of St. Thomas University and a few other incidents in the community, such as mention a case of hostages held in their own home in Chanhassen. A caller then called in to get back to the show and said something about how Keith Ellison went on a show and was either mocked or humiliated somehow I’m guessing, which they never said, and that he and all democrats need to “stop putting up with crap.� They then talked about how Bill O’reilly never listens to anyone he lets on his show and how Fox News is falling apart and said that Fox reported that “terrorists are happy that democrats are now in power.� They then went on to say that democrats need to immediately begin the campaign for senate to replace Norm Coleman because he is ‘going to have so much money’ and mentioned that Tim Pawlenty only won the election because wealthy individuals (Denny Hecker) and insurance/loan companies who can benefit from him being in office gave him large amounts of money. Immediately after the show, an ad for the Ed Schulz show on 950 said “Anyone dealing with President Bush, or having anything to do with the wrongdoing thats gone on...your @$$ is out.�

The second media source I looked at was CNN, known to be a rather liberal news source. I watched specifically a show hosted by Wolf Blitzer called The Situation Room. The first part of the show had on a member of the House of Reps. from some state I didn’t catch but being interviewed he said “democrats have been given an opportunity to make some changes but they have also been given the responsibility to the people of this country.� Then on Iraq, briefed on a supply convoy “ambushed� and ‘troops desperately search for 14 missing Americans and talked about 2200 more marines are being sent to help as investigators try to sort out exactly what happened. Then, democrat Harold Ford Jr. who lost in senate race in TN talked about how he hopes that Bush will listen to the Iraq examining committee and deal back and forth with democrats to determine a good solution for the war and create some stability. John Edwards talked about maybe running for President (wife had recovered from cancer and said “republicans can’t accuse democrats of having no spokesperson anymore� because of the amount of seats they now have. Finally, the show ended with two powerful democratic congresswomen from CA, and they have a strained relationship in a fight for some position I guess, and Pelosi said that seniority is not a prereq. for the positon, and said that Harman’s not as against Iraq and herself.

Context: The local AM radio’s intended audience is, seemingly clearly, Minnesotan’s living near the Minneapolis Area who are anti-Republican, and already knowledgeable and interested in politics, for they never explain what the issue is, only talk about it in a somewhat belligerent manner. The author Mark Heaney hosts the show and I was unable to find out his background in politics and/or radio. The show itself is to discuss liberal politics and its agenda specific to Minnesota and get Minnesotan’s involved with call’ins, etc. The socio-historic context for this show/station is that it is now the most listened to liberal station in Minnesota, after starting up to take on AM which was primarily dominated by corporate-owned republican talk shows. Congressman Bill Luther and attorney Janet Robert started the station recently in 2003.

CNN is a major national news source, intended audience being general public, American citizens, and working professionals, so clearly the discussions are more likely to be censored and strict. The author, Wolf Blitzer, is quite famous for his show “the Situation Room� and his content is owned by CNN, which is originally started by Ted Turner. The general reporting of news on CNN is unbiased, and aimed purely to inform, but the shows are rather democratic and showing great interest in the politicians representing their views.

Analysis & Discussion: What I found in doing my comparison was, first off, that the AM radio show really surprised at how they talked about Republicans for 45 minutes straight of bashing. Even more interesting, people would call in and join in, as if the best way for a local AM radio show to gain ratings was to get the community involved and bash the opposite political party to do so. I have never really heard people say some of the things they said on radio before and realize that CNN could never get away with that and so run a more professional show with a host and guests that have some decency. There was almost no specific derogatory comment toward Republicans from any guest on CNN. The way that they differ was in their intended audience and purpose for that audience. One thing I found to be similar, is that with a show, they each just went from topic to topic very quickly, and if they went on to something I didn’t know enough about already, I was completely lost because they each only talked about an issue without informing the listener to what the case/issue is.
I think that this was a very interesting comparison for me because I have never really payed attention to the fact that maybe the media I get my news from affects tremendously what I think or see. I also liked seeing the difference in guests they had on their shows, and also see how democrats may think or talk about political news. I also learned something about civic participation in relation to the media, and that is a result of me only knowing what I knew about the topics of discussion on the shows because of what I see and glance through on the internet from time to time. As the world gets busier (my schedule), we spend more time taking care of things on the internet and only have time to catch up by reading it on the internet. When I have free time to relax, I don’t want to turn on AM radio in my car, I want to listen to music, and the same goes for watching television. I strongly believe that despite increased television shows and channels reporting political news, and on the radio, the internet is the most important to most citizens on a daily basis because its the only way to “keep up�.