A New York Times piece on how Air America Radio has been and, seemingly, continues to be run. Ugh.
Ugh.
Late Update: A number of readers have written in to ask whether, in this post, I was criticizing the Times or Air America. Short version: Air America. I don’t want to get too deeply into this because I don’t know enough of the details to say with any intelligence who knew what they were doing and who didn’t. And I know a lot of people at the Air America so I’m probably compromised by that at some level — not wanting to criticize friends and all that. But reading the Times article and just hearing stories along the way it’s really, really hard not to get the impression that the management and business side of the operation never matched up to a lot of the stuff being done by the on-air talent. And there’s a follow-on point I’d like to make. A number of readers have written in to say that I’m being unfair to the enterprise because there’s no real way AA could succeed as a business without in some way violating its liberal editorial principles. I think that’s crazy. And this point is entirely separate from anything about Air America. But whether you define your market as liberals or Democrats, or some mix of the two or whatever, I don’t buy — based on principle and experience — that you can’t publish or broadcast stuff those folks like and make a profit at the same time. The thought that the two aims are in some necessary conflict has always struck me as one of the most effete, self-justifying and pathetic parts of the liberal psyche in this country. Hopefully, one on the decline.
