A couple of weeks ago there was an article in the Fitchburg Pride about a new radio show on WEIM. The Pride article said the show was going to be called "Morse Code", since it's hosted by a guy named Chuck Morse and that makes it a really clever name.Well, it's not named that. Actually it's named "Talk Back with Chuck Morse". Also, it sucks ass.
I had the misfortune of tuning in to this show today, on its second day on the air. Let me provide for you a brief synopsis.
- First 10 minutes: Host guy kisses the ass of guy running as a Republican in Lowell's special election today. Also spends a lot of time badmouthing Democrats. Note: 1280 AM is impossible to listen to in Lowell. Trust me, I tried.
- Next 5 minutes: commercials
- Next 10 minutes: Host guy kisses the ass of some jackass who wrote a book called "Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't". Spends a lot of time equating Muslims with Nazis. Doesn't seem to realize that Hitler was a Christian.
- Next 5 minutes: commercials
- Spends awhile talking to local radio guy Ray C., who's way smarter than him. Calls himself a "friendly conservative". Demonstrates that he doesn't know the names of the mayoral candidates (neither DeSalvatore nor Dionne). Mispronounces a simple word in an hilarious way (but I can't remember what it was, argh!). I decide to listen to something else.
So who's Chuck Morse? Why, he's a "friendly conservative" of course! He spent some time saying how he loves everyone and wants to hear all their opinions and so forth. And that he quit the Republican party (even though he's a registered Republican, so don't ask me how that works). Which I'm sure was supposed to make him look open-minded, but really just came across as pandering to try to get people to call in to his call-in show (nobody did while I was listening).
Why, just look at his friendly website where he's described this way:
Host Chuck Morse, a conservative intellectual who ran for Congress against Barney Frank, is a veteran radio commentator, author, columnist, and business owner. Morse was named a "Hot 100" upcoming talk show host by Talkers Magazine.How friendly is he? Well, just check out this screenshot of his website featuring news items about him:
I think it's safe to say that no, Barney Frank had not met his match.Also, I guess he's only friendly if you're not a Muslim...
Or anyone who realizes that WorldNet Daily is the single most ill-informed hardcore conservative "news" outlet outside the Weekly Standard...
Or anyone who snickers when they hear the phrase "conservative intellectual"...
But yeah, super-friendly. Thank god we have another ultra-conservative moron in the local media! We didn't have nearly enough of them already.
Oh, Donnelly and DeSalvatore are both supposed to be on the show this week too. And he's invited Lisa Wong. Since Dionne doesn't have an email address I guess he's not invited. He should consider himself lucky.
[Update: 9/5/07] According to Wikipedia's article on Morse:
Morse ran a write-in campaign against incumbent Barney Frank for the 2006 Massachusetts's 4th congressional district elections, as he did not get enough certified signatures to appear on the ballot. The total possible percentage of votes Morse could have received as a write-in canidate in the 2006 election would be 1.2% of the total vote.Sweet!
Dude also writes for not just WorldNetDaily, but also the equally despicable NewsMax.com. And he wrote a book called "Why I'm a Right-Wing Extremist".
Also, he sued Wikipedia/Wikimedia for a totally insane reason.
"Friendly conservative" my ass.
[Update over]
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In unrelated matters, I'm still waiting for a response to my email from the last post. I assume it will be arriving soon, since the only reason to not answer would be if DeSalvatore had something to hide. And that's just crazy!
4 comments:
Well thank God DeSalvatore isn't a Muslim!
He isn't is he?
Man I had to jump through some hoops to get an account so I could post. Glad to be here though.
Yuck about the right wing radio host. I can tolerate Jimmy Severino aka-Jay Severin but, I draw the line there. I only listen for laughs not info anyway.
I like that his website features a convenient "Make a Payment" button. Since there's no exposition describing what items or services one might purchase from Mr. Morse and the button links directly to Paypal, I can only assume that "Make a Payment" is the libertarian analogue to "Make a Donation".
Ok, what am I missing here?
I went to the WEIM website and can't find Chuck Morse on the schedule. I couldn't find the time of his show in the Pride article. I finally found it listed at his website, 5-7PM M-F. So.... after the tremendously popular local veteran Ray C getting bumped from a lifetime of morning drive to 6-7 PM a few months ago, with Morse occupying that time slot, where is our local hero?
Radio is, of course, a business. Deregulation has permitted the decline of local programming and a whole generation have seen AM radio deteriorate into either cheap canned music (hey, I'm an audiophile and haven't listened to AM for the music since the advent of FM)or sports and/or all-talk - which is more expensive due to payroll.
But somewhere in here is the "keeping local stations local" thing. Part of keeping it local is understanding your demographic. Our local demographic is middle of the road, neither extremely left nor right.
Or am I missing it? After having lived in a Republican area for several years before coming back home, I observed a slight shift to the middle-right, but I'm not aware of Fitchburg having taken a hard right turn.
So where is this extremist's audience? This guy is hard right even in comparison to Fox News Channel.
And if he is such a big deal, how come there is no mention of him at the WEIM website?
Smart small market radio avoids controversy. I personally feel this is a programming mistake, and lack of sponsorship due to lack of listenership will trigger a quick correction.
At least I hope so! Leave the crackpots to the blogs. We like our radio straightforward and friendly, thank you.
Ray C is an example of what has been right about small market radio since its inception. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Shalom
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