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I don’t listen to much talk radio — in fact, until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even have a radio at home. As I’ve written before, I don’t pay much attention to talk radio because I don’t really have an interest in hearing about crazy conspiracy theories on either end of the spectrum.
That doesn’t mean I don’t find humor in talk radio, however, and Colorado Media Matters points out a good example of how talk radio can be unintentionally funny:
While promoting Bill O’Reilly’s 630 KHOW-AM show, Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman allowed the conservative talker to make the dubious assertions that “stores and governments and schools” are “ordering people not to say, ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” and that Denver newspaper columnists Dusty Saunders and Joanne Ostrow, who cover television, are “hard-core leftists.”
Promoting the return of his syndicated show to 630 KHOW-AM, co-hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman allowed Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly to spread misinformation on a variety of topics during the December 11 broadcast of The Caplis & Silverman Show. O’Reilly told Caplis and Silverman, “I don’t get offended easily,” while during the interview he asserted that “stores and governments and schools” are “ordering people not to say, ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” and that Rocky Mountain News television critic Dusty Saunders and Denver Post television and radio critic Joanne Ostrow are “hard-core leftists.”
Now, I don’t know if Dusty Saunders is a “hard-core leftist” or not, and given the source, I’m not inclined to believe it anyway. But even if he is…so what? He’s a television critic. Are his political beliefs influencing his coverage of “American Idol”?
Marc Spears covers the Denver Nuggets for The Denver Post. I don’t know if he’s a liberal or a conservative, and it wouldn’t matter two licks to me either way. He covers sports. There’s no liberal or conservative bias in reporting how many points Carmelo Anthony scored.
I understand the shock-jock thing, and I understand that Bill O’Reilly is outrageous on purpose because it gets ratings. But at some point you cross over from being controversial to being silly, and this is a great case of that.