The
man who brings intelligent, indignant populism to the airwaves and makes a hit of it will
qualify as a hero. Even the addled males who now populate talk radio are
beginning to suspect that there is a permanent corporate government, usually
invisible, and that the visible, provisionally elected government is putting on
a show. That a class war is indeed being waged, against them, and they are
losing it. There are good reasons for thinking they might respond to a leader
who could persuade them to stop thinking in terms of the
liberal-versus-conservative phony war. Television anesthetizes, radio
implicates: a radio personality who combines Rush Limbaugh’s flair for the
medium with a hot-wire to reality — an instinct for making heresies palatable
— could take a nasty chunk out of the fat boy from Missouri and inspire
defections from his ranks.
Alas, there are also reasons for believing our own Jim Hightower, the
“pocketbook populist” who begins a new weekday radio show on Labor Day, is not
that man. On his ABC weekend show, unceremoniously yanked off the air almost a
year ago, he did not demonstrate a natural affinity for the form. He lacks that
eerie ability Limbaugh and a few others have for engaging in easy banter with
total strangers, all the while folding it into a steady propaganda barrage.
There is a ratchety insistence in his voice that many find grating.
Hightower seems to grasp some of this, for the advance word on his new show
makes it sound more like a politicized Prairie Home Companion than
classic talk radio, featuring plenty of guest interviews and musical
interludes. The Hightower team even promises interaction with the audience at
the new Threadgill’s Restaurant in south Austin, where the show will originate
from
11am — 1pm on weekdays. In what could be an entertaining throwback to
radio’s golden age a la Garrison Keillor, the show will be done live in
the middle of the restaurant, right in front of the lunch trade. Hightower
often seemed more comfortable when he had someone to interview, and as a
vehicle for his practice of viewing the political spectrum from top to bottom
instead of left to right, it could work.
So one wishes him well and is frustrated over having to report that you may
not be able to hear it. The show will be carried on the fledging United
Broadcast Network, and the natural outlet for it in Austin is KVET, which used
to carry the weekend show. At least a couple of higher-ups at the station are
reportedly in favor of picking up the show, but a decision is still pending.
“It’s not that simple, because you’ve got to figure out what you do around it,”
says Ron Rogers, KVET’s president and general manager, referring to the
necessity of juggling time slots and giving current performers a chance to
build an audience. “Jim’s a talented fellow, but he wasn’t a ratings success
with us before. If it can be a monetary success and not a ratings success, then
we’ll look at it. We’re going to talk about it this week.” Rogers also said he
was curious about how the new format would hold up.
Now, KVET is not currently burning holes in the Arbitron sheets with the
Joyce Isaacs show from 11am-1pm; it’s a slot more or less owned by Rush
Limbaugh down the dial at KLBJ-AM. The new Hightower show seems like a natural
for them, not even that big a gamble. Still, the character of the station must
be taken into account. KVET is owned by former mayor and notorious
paleoconservative Roy Butler, and its general operations manager is Bob Cole,
one half of Sammy and Bob, whose morning show is a petri dish of loony
reaction. (Our homegrown Rush clone, Paul Pryor, holds forth on KVET from
1-4pm, his former rude energy noticeably lacking.) And even aside from all
that, the station’s reluctance in taking on a new show with an unusual,
unproven format would be understandable.
“If KVET doesn’t want to carry it live, then the network is re-feeding it in
the evening, and either KVET or KLBJ could pick it up,” says Hightower
aide-de-camp Betsy Moon.
Whatever his fate on home turf, Hightower will at least enjoy a full measure
of independence in his new berth — although it is worth noting that his demise
at ABC probably had as much to do with low ratings as with the fact that he
attacked Disney right after the entertainment giant bought ABC. (He also
derided ABC-TV and its news division for caving in to tobacco industry legal
pressure.) “The handwriting was on the wall. He might have lasted another six
months if not for that,” says a local broadcasting expert who requested
anonymity. “If he’d had good ratings, he could have demanded Michael Eisner’s
balls in a jar and it wouldn’t have mattered.”
According to Betsy Moon, the other major radio networks all passed on the show
after the ABC debacle. Then UBN approached them and offered Hightower headliner
status. The new network is a retooled, expanded version of the People’s
Broadcast Network. Based in White Springs, Florida — and financed by the
United Auto Workers and several private investors, probably left-leaning
millionaires — it will start up in over a hundred markets. The setup sounds
roughly analogous to Paul Newman bankrolling The Nation, that reliable
leftist weekly. Hightower has been guaranteed total editorial control. Rather
than sell time for standard commercial spots, advertising revenue will be
generated by selling products directly over the air using toll-free telephone
numbers and catalog contacts. In keeping with Hightower’s fervent opposition to
NAFTA, only products made in the U.S. will get the nod.
Hightower also plans a newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, published
biweekly for a very low subscription cost beginning in the fall, and a book of
his commentary will be published next spring by Harper Collins. His web page is
at http://tap.org/hightower/.
Stymied in San Diego
TheStatesman sent its Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ken Herman tothe Republican Convention in San Diego, and three of the local TV news outfits
had people there as well. They came up with just shy of zilch, to no one’s
surprise, since the big guns at the networks and the major daily papers didn’t
come up with much either. The local coverage amounted to little more than free
publicity for various members of the GOP Texas delegation. It was a strange
week, as the major topic of the mainstream media’s coverage was their own
helplessness over how to cover a blatant, carefully scripted act of symbol
creation. As if they haven’t had years to figure it out.
Contrary to the basic theme of nothing-happening-here, there was a story to be
had in San Diego. The religious right drove deep stakes into the party over the
last few years, and for the convention to come off as a festival of moderation
means that a deal was cut. That is how it works, plain and simple. Relatively
little-known reporters like Herman and famous ones like Cokie Roberts, none of
whom fell off the bus yesterday, all tiptoed around the fact, wasting
everyone’s time.
Traditional journalists can be counted on to bungle made-for-TV conventions,
because they are themselves a conduit for the symbolism busily being created in
the convention hall. If they took it all apart too aggressively, they would
risk diminishing their own importance. So tact rules, and it was only hinted
that Bob Dole’s stirring declaration of principles was a vivid contrast to a
career that seems to show he believes in nothing but expediency. An anonymous
director at NBC briefly caught the moment, though, when Dole said that any
bigots in the party could leave through the “exits, which are clearly marked.”
The remark was followed by a montage of white faces, at least of dozen of them.
It was over in a few seconds and seemed to go on forever; while it lasted, the
coverage met the event on its own terms and stopped feeling obsolete.
This article appears in August 30 • 1996 and August 30 • 1996 (Cover).