Cut Limbaugh and Hannity By Ralph Nader

[HolyCity2012]

Cut Limbaugh and Hannity
By Ralph Nader

April 13, 2011



he tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio and public TV are replete with left-leaning or leftist programming.

Ludicrous, that is, unless this criticism's yardstick is the propaganda regularly exuded by the extreme right-wing Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. These "capitalists" use the public's airwaves free-of-charge to make big money.

The truth is that the frightened executives at public TV and radio have long been more hospitable to interviews with right of center or extreme right-wing and corporatist talking heads than liberal or progressive guests.

PBS's Charlie Rose has had war-loving William Kristol on 31 times, Henry Kissinger 55 times, Richard Perle 10 times, the global corporatist cheerleader, Tom Friedman 70 times. Compare that guest list with Rose's interviews of widely published left of center guests - Noam Chomsky two times, William Grieder two times, Jim Hightower two times, Charlie Peters two times, Lewis Lapham three times, Bob Herbert six times, Paul Krugman 21 times, Victor Navasky one time, Mark Green five times and Sy Hersh, once a frequent guest, has not been on since January 2005.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the widely-quoted super-accurate drug industry critic, who is often featured on the commercial TV network shows, has never been on Rose's show. Nor has the long-time head of Citizens for Tax Justice and widely respected progressive tax analyst, Robert McIntyre.

Far more corporate executives, not known for their leftist inclinations, appear on Rose's show than do leaders of environmental, consumer, labor and poverty organizations.

In case you are wondering, I've appeared four times, but not since August 2005, and not once on the hostile Terri Gross radio show.

The unabashed progressive Bill Moyer's Show is off the air and has not been replaced. No one can charge PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer with anything other than very straightforward news delivery, bland opinion exchanges and a troubling inclination to avoid much reporting that upsets the power structures in Congress, the White House, the Pentagon or Wall Street.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5610-cut-limbaugh-and-hannity

[Cirque du So-What]

1. ...'hostile Terri (sic) Gross radio show...'?

'Hostile' if you're 'Deadeye Dick' Cheney, his horrid wife, KISS frontman Gene Simmons or Dildo Reilly...and now add Ralph Nader to that august company.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Hostile as in she refuses to have him on. At all. Ever.

As far as I can tell, that is what that reference meant.

[Scuba]

3. Are you kidding me? Tax dollars are paying Limbaugh to be on Armed Forces Radio. n/t