This has bugged me for a while, but just lately it’s reached a head and now I’m all riled up, dammit!
It started a while backw hen first I heard Air America hosts shamelessly shilling for a gold broker, all of them (Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller . . . .) not only lending their voices, names, credibility to the product just by reading the ad copy, but all of them claiming to be actual gold investors.
Now I’m not saying that gold is a bad investment, or that none of the Air Americans invest in it – although I have a very hard time believing that they all do, except, possibly, for the fact that the advertiser is probably giving them a deal on them purdy yeller rocks – but, as a trusted on-air personality, to claim that “gold will protect you in times of economic strife” (as Stephanie Miller puts it, although I can’t remember if the exact word is “strife,” to be honest) and other such outlandish bullshit, is unconscionable.
I realize that Air America is a struggling network, but to crap all over your legitimacy and listeners by, again, not only advertising the product but having/letting your stars make ludicrous claims on its behalf, is awful. Listeners love their radio personalities, they trust them, and I’m sure too many of them go out and make ill-advised investments based on their recommendations (which is why it’s effective advertising, of course). It's one thing to encourage people to buy a face cream (Stephanie Miller and Rachel Maddow also do an ad for one of those), another to suggest that people risk substantial portions of their income/savings on a commodity, and one that's already ingrained as desirable well before one even considers its potential profitability.
On the local side, WHMP (Air America, Red Sox, etc. in the Valley) is running, in mid-day, with plenty of potential listeners, a travesty called The Gold Show, in which a fellow with a British or maybe Aussie accent, is given an hour time slot to hawk gold. I’m a little foggy on the exact air times/days (and, oddly enough it’s nowhere to be found onthe station's online schedule) but I’m pretty sure the show used to be on in a much less popular time slot (maybe Sunday afternoons?), and just once a week. Now I keep running into it (replacing an hour of Stephanie Miller) late morning, and I believe multiple times a week. It’s an infomercial, plain and simple, and should be prefaced and repeated throughout the show as such by the station. Instead, if I remember correctly (were this an article, not a blog post, I’d spend more time listening to the crap for accuracy's sake), it’s presented in a mock news-interview format – akin to the infomercials you’ll find on late night TV that are made to look like the Larry King Show – in which one of the station’s on-air personalities lobs softballs at the silky-tongued goldmonger.
While I’m sure that HMP gives the usual disclaimer about the advertorial not representing the views, etc. of the station or its staff, this show, coupled with the constant gold ads during nearly every other show on HMP air, really states just the opposite: that, again, the station you trust heartily endorses this product. I know that “in this economy” advertising dollars must be hard to come by, but does making a buck justify sacrificing your credibility and duping your audience? Apparently the brass at WHMP think so. I think the practice is disgraceful. If you agree and want to spend a few minutes of your time on it, especially if you’re an HMP/Air America listener, consider giving the station a call or an email. The same goes for Air America.
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One last note about a particular smarmy shill. Some of you may know of Richard Greene as the host of the show “Clout” and of another Hollywood radio show. A few months ago I caught one particular airing, and while, politics aside, I’ve always been put off by the man (I remember a particularly vomitous, ass-kissing interview he did with one of the “Slumdog” actors), this one was well beyond smarm, it was downright unethical. He spent nearly an entire show, I believe it was two hours long, on a thinly-veiled infomercial for headphones that will protect you from harmful radiation from your phone, replete with interviews with “unbiased” “experts” in the field. The science was dubious at best, the experts clearly heavily vested in the success of the product, the host trying to veil his dubious endorsement of the product. But again, just because I see it as biased, doesn’t mean that people who like and trust Mr. Greene will see it that way, which, again, makes it effective advertising (in this case, advertising veiled as news/talk), which, again, makes it just that much more reprehensible.
P.S. I really don’t know why I even listen to Air America. Nearly every host – Thom Hartmann being a notable, stellar (if at times, a bit dry) exception – either panders or condescends to his or her audience. Have you listened to Ed Schultz (or now, watched him on MSNBC)? The man clearly aims to be the Rush Limbaugh of the middle-left, and he succeeds all too well – he’s a populist in the worst sense of the word, catering to – ranting at – the lowest common denominator. But I’ll save more on “big Eddie” for another post.
You know what I need? A radio show!
