Pam-demonium

DownLeft isn't letting WMAY's Pamela Furr off the hook on the Durbin Joke "scandal":

The steps [David] Brock describes in his book are as follows:

1) Pretend to be offended by something and play up mock outrage.
2) Keep talking about the issue as if its a big story and get other
conservative media outlets to cover it, such as talk radio, blogs and Fox News,
until it actually is a big story.
3) Pressure legitimate media outlets who don't cover the story by accusing
them of having a liberal bias until they cave into the contrived hysteria.

This tactic out of the conservative media's playbook was closely followed
by WMAY conservative talk radio host, Pamela Furr. After she decided to be
offended by Durbin's joke on her show she sent it out to other talk radio shows
so they could keep the act going.

The SJ-R's Benard Schoenburg is all over it too.

DownLeft also brings up something that's of interest to me:

...Furr is allowed to have a talk show and at the same time deceptively
parade herself as an objective journalist on WMAY.

I'm not going to bash Furr over this for a couple of reasons. One, that's just what her employer requires of her, it's her job. Secondly, I did the same thing years ago as both the news director of a radio station and the host of its daily talk show.

Still, I think its wrong.

I understand the economics for the station. By utilizing the talk show personalities as part of the news team, it can afford more local voices. I understand that. I lived that.

The thing is, I wasn't comfortable doing it and I kind of hate hearing it. I know you can present the news objectively in newscasts while still being allowed to voice your opinion on your talk show. But, as a listener, when I hear Furr (or any dual-use personality) reading the news, I always wonder what they are thinking about the story (or guessing what they are thinking) and I find that distracting.

99.99% of listeners do not have the insight I do into what its like for these on-air people and I suspect they aren't as convinced that one can keep his or her own biases largely out of the news. It's not hard to imagine the average listener occasionally dismissing what they hear, including the choice of stories presented and how they are presented, simply because they KNOW the news readers prejudices.