LIMBAUGH LAND: A VERY SCARY PLACE

On balance I have to say the American people usually get it right. Whether voting for a legislator or leader, or tuning in to a television program in large numbers, or even buying a consumer product en masse. Oh, I’ve had my moments of disappointment in Americans, like the time that jury found Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of two murders he obviously committed. Or the time that I witnessed America elect George W. Bush for a second term. But generally we Americans come through.

That is why I’m having such a hard time figuring out the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon. If you think phenomenon is too strong a word, let the numbers tell the story. Limbaugh is currently in the midst of a $400 million, eight-year contract, easily positioning him as the highest paid radio personality in the history of the medium. Nobody has an accurate handle on the size of his audience, but it is rarely estimated lower than 20 million listeners. Let me put that in perspective for you: In September, 2009, Nielsen Media Research put Oprah’s television audience at about seven million viewers daily. Limbaugh is heard three hours a day on more than 600 radio stations. The Armed Forces Radio Network broadcasts his show to military service personnel all over the world. It is highly possible that “Rush Radio” is heard by more human beings than anything else on the radio.

Limbaugh is the embodiment of the vulnerability of the First Amendment. He has twisted, distorted and maligned the most precious freedom we have – expression. His comments about the Haiti tragedy are probably his most heinous to date. So I am left to wonder, why are the American people not getting it right with this guy, when I generally trust that they do? What is it about this man that engenders such loyalty?

In case you’re one of the four Americans who haven’t yet heard Limbaugh’s outrageous post-earthquake comments, listen:

As one who communicates for a living, I support Limbaugh’s inalienable right to say such blatantly mean-spirited and hateful things in a public forum. I support it because if somehow Limbaugh’s right to express himself is limited, then so could my freedom or your freedom be limited. Freedom comes with a high price and in radio right now, the price tag is Limbaugh.

Still, many times when the man speaks, I cringe. Of the American military personnel who tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Limbaugh said if the Americans are punished, “ we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?”

In 2006 when actor Michael J. Fox appeared in a campaign ad, visibly exhibiting the shaky symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, Limbaugh said, "He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Limbaugh’s racist and sexist rants are now legendary. Of the black citizenry of the U.S., he once said, “They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?” He labeled President Obama a “halfrican American.” Regarding unskilled laborers, Limbaugh is on record with this: “I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.” And, of the women’s movement, Limbaugh offered, "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”

I could go on, but you get the picture. If you dismiss Limbaugh as simply an extremist fringe talking head, keep in mind those 20+ million devoted listeners. How many of them are buying into Limbaugh’s bigotry, hatred and negative rants? And how many others are those millions influencing by spreading the Limbaugh ideology? And what does it contribute to a civilized society? Often, Limbaugh is simply fueling the American fire of racism, frustration over unemployment, public disillusionment with government and widespread panic about terrorism. Limbaugh rarely offers reasonable solutions. Recently he told his listeners they should not worry about the cost of health insurance, simply because it costs less than buying a new car. Never mind that many of his listeners have never even owned a new car.

So, back to loyalty: I believe Limbaugh’s followers are loyal because he simply speaks up. Even in a culture that legally protects free speech, many Americans are afraid to voice their views for fear of being categorized, shunned or dismissed as extremists. Rush has no such fear. He has built his fortunes on the misfortunes of others, and he has been increasingly vocal about it for decades. Perhaps his listeners are living vicariously through Limbaugh. Or…more frighteningly, perhaps many of them truly believe what he says.

But What Will We Do at 4PM?

It’s the same old boy meets girl story. Okay, maybe it’s not. Wait. It’s more like middle-aged white Jewish guy doesn’t meet black billionaire media tycoon, but follows her career from afar. The guy would be me, and the tycoon would be our holy St. Oprah of Chicago.

Around 1983, I was on a plane reading PEOPLE magazine, when I came across a story about a Chicago talk show hostess (that’s what they called female talk show hosts in those days). There were photos of her – extremely overweight, too much makeup, too much hair, huge, strangely compelling smile. Could she be the next Phil Donahue, the writer wondered? Nah, I thought. Nobody can out-Phil Phil Donahue. At the time, I was a Donahue fanatic, always going on about how Phil had the best gig in the universe. I was so hooked on Phil that a few years earlier, when I worked at a St. Louis TV station, I used to lock my office door at 10AM so that I could watch his show, even though there was a hard and fast rule that employees were never to switch the channel from our own KPLR-TV, Channel 11 – “The Ones to Watch.” Get it? 11, the “ones” to watch. Oy.

But Phil(below, left) had invented a genre that caused the American public to switch its collective allegiance from soap operas to his talk show. One day he would have a world leader on his stage, and the next day he would have male strippers. Ku Klux Klan-ers, motion picture legends, crooked politicians, gay activists, punk rockers, atheists, life-changing scientists – if you can think of a category of human being, you saw it on Phil, sometime between 1974 and 1996, the years his syndicated program aired first from Chicago and later from New York.

As it happened, Oprah could and indeed did become “the next Phil Donahue.” Oprah took Phil’s concept, beginning with her hosting gig on AM Chicago (right), and nursed it along until it evolved into something much broader than Donahue had ever envisioned. One could safely say Oprah invented the concept of media convergence. Today, convergence is a term that is tossed around to describe various media working in harmony to convey information to a mass audience. It can be as simple as Oprah starting a book club, or as technologically advanced as Oprah using Skype, contemporary software that allows ordinary viewers to communicate remotely (sometimes from their own kitchens) in real time with Oprah, in front of a live audience. Today, Oprah’s convergence methodology extends to her “Oprah Radio,” her diverse collection of programming on XM satellite radio. It even reaches out to movie audiences, most recently through her collaboration with movie maker Tyler Perry on the film Precious. “O,” the magazine is celebrating its 10th year in print, in conjunction with the Heart Corporation. Oprah is media convergence, defined.

The evolution of Oprah is something to behold, and a lesson in “anything is possible.” Oprah was born to a coal miner and house maid in a rural Mississippi town with a population even today that doesn’t reach 8,000. If legend is accurate, Oprah was the result of a single sexual encounter between her parents. For the four of you out there who haven’t heard the story, you can Google her and read all about it, but the highlights are extreme poverty, sexual molestation, the ability to read before age three, a pregnancy at age 14 that resulted in a still birth, and an inner drive that allowed her to achieve more than her early life story would have portended. As for the molestation part, Oprah revealed over the years that she was abused by a cousin, an uncle and a family acquaintance, beginning at age nine.

Her early story is all about over-achieving. By her senior year in high school she was already working in TV news. The obvious progression, as the years added up, was to put her on air as a newscaster,(left) but Oprah could not manage the requisite poker face. If a story was funny, she looked straight in the camera and laughed that hearty Oprah laugh we know so well now. If a story was sad, her empathy fairly spilled over the airwaves, sometimes even resulting in tears. It was clear Oprah was not to be Walter Cronkite. By 1984 she had a local Chicago morning talk show. By 1986 she was nationally syndicated. The rest we’ve been watching for 25 years.

Well…almost 25 years. Recently, Oprah revealed that 25 would mark her sterling silver transition from the daytime talk arena into ownership of her own network, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). It is likely Oprah will do for cable all that she did for all other media. Just as traditional network news traces its most important paradigm shift to the day John F. Kennedy was killed, cable TV will probably mark its true ascent to the moment Oprah chose cable over network syndication.

Why does it matter to you? Does it even matter? It does. It should. Oprah Winfrey is living proof that one human being can make a positive difference in the lives of millions of others. Whether it is a post-Katrina Louisiana housing development built with Oprah dollars, or a South African school for girls built with Oprah’s sheer will and determination, it matters. Everything Oprah has done in these 25 years has been geared toward enabling individuals to become their “best selves,” as she terms it. She has given a voice to individuals who otherwise may have remained involuntarily silent. She has offered a platform for individuals who could substantively contribute to the mix of ideas – individuals who had previously been unable to find the widest audience. Consider Mattie Stepanek, the self-titled “poet and peacemaker,” who suffered from a rare form of muscular dystrophy that finally claimed his life. Mattie’s words had already reached many people by the time Oprah met him, but she enabled him to reach tens of millions more. Watch: After this quarter century of everything Oprah, it is not really about whether you find her appealing or whether you even watch her show. It is about recognizing excellence; separating the glitz and glamour from the real and the important. Oprah’s steady emergence was the visual representation of the intersection of the civil rights movement and television’s grasp on popular culture. When she finally got to interview her lifelong heroes (Barbara Walters, Mary Tyler Moore, Sidney Poitier) we all got to experience the same full circle moments. Since Oprah could beat the odds she overcame, maybe we can too. If Oprah can come outside of herself and dedicate her best energy to enriching the lives of those who need it the most, maybe that can be a catalyst for us to do so, as well. Oprah has high standards in an era when standards have all but disappeared. There is a critical message in there somewhere for us all.

Oprah has given us a 23-month notice that she’s closing down The Oprah Winfrey Show. That’s plenty of time for us to recognize what she brought to the cultural table, and to understand how she found a way to use media to enrich all of our lives.

And selfishly, here’s my favorite part of Oprah’s impending departure – her last broadcast is scheduled for September 9, 2011 – my birthday!

MAGAZINE SALES SLUMP? PUT OPRAH ON THE COVER

I was on a plane around 1985 or so when I read a feature in PEOPLE Magazine about a Chicago talk show host named Oprah Winfrey. She was reportedly taking Chicago by storm with her daily WLS-TV gab fest. At the time, the daytime talk show genre was inarguably ruled by Phil Donahue (below left), who also rose to national fame out of Chicago. A few years earlier, in my first job out of college, I worked for a St. Louis TV station. We had a TV in every office, and we were not allowed to turn the channel to any station other than our own. Still, every morning at 10AM, I locked my office door and switched the channel to Donahue. To me, he had the best job in the world. By the mid-1980s, Donahue was still going strong, but several others were vying for his top spot.

Around that time, TIME Magazine wrote this about Winfrey: "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue...What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye...They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session." In what seemed the blink of an eye, The Oprah Winfrey Show achieved national syndication. Fast forward to 2009: The show now airs in 140 countries around the world. I doubt anyone would call Oprah’s interviewing skills into question today. Winfrey is said to be the first black female billionaire in the world, has become her own brand, and is widely held to be a lifestyle/spiritual style guru to hundreds of millions of people.

Therein lies the problem. Every time a person achieves unprecedented success and off-the-map notoriety, it seems there is a segment of the population that needs to bring her or him down. (Think Susan Boyle, Martha Stewart, et al). Enter Newsweek Magazine, who only last week introduced their newly revamped periodical, promising a departure from breaking news and a focus on more in depth features, columns, etc. (You can read all about that here on Greenberg Rants [page left] in the blurb titled, “Whither Newsweek?”) This week’s cover story: “CRAZY TALK: Oprah Wacky Cures and You.” Evidently Newsweek is opting for a bit of sensationalism, doing whatever it takes to capture the newsstand crowd. Oprah will do that for you, you know.

The true story of Newsweek’s downhill slide is the content of the cover story. Written by two women who clearly have an agenda, the story is an abominable piece of journalism, and seems somewhat unnecessary. A good portion of the story deals with Oprah’s guest, Suzanne Somers, who appeared on the show to promote bio-identical hormones for menopausal women. The writers were severely critical of Somers, and more so of Oprah for her support of Somers. Admittedly, Oprah probably should have remained more objective on the show. She went so far as to have Somers on stage, but the doctors who disagreed with bio-identicals were seated in the audience and given minimal air time. But then the bomb hits: In parentheses, and evidently in the interest of full disclosure: “NEWSWEEK correspondent Pat Wingert, who worked on this article, and contributor Barbara Kantrowitz are coauthors of a book on menopause.” So, that’s the writers’ agenda. Oprah would call this point in the story an “Aha Moment.”

Where I come from in journalism, we would call that a conflict of interest. I can’t help wondering what they call that where Newsweek’s managing editor Jon Meacham comes from. Most discouraging is how obvious it is that the writers are not regular viewers of the show and have not closely or accurately followed Oprah’s career. I have, so I can see the inaccuracies and flaws in their reporting.

Regular Greenberg Rants readers know I am a big supporter of Oprah Winfrey. She is often kiddingly referred to herein as Our Holy St. Oprah of Chicago. I half-seriously refer to myself as the only middle-aged white guy in America who TIVOS Oprah every single day. (Although anecdotally I have found out that there is a huge, loyal contingent of male Oprah loyalists. They’re a little private society). Oprah and I are about the same age. We have some similar frames of reference. But most of all, I support Oprah because she built an empire entirely on words. She recognized the power of the spoken and written word and she became the pied piper of literacy, dialogue and an expanding mix of ideas in our culture.

Oprah gets people to think about the issues that directly affect them. She has re-energized a love of reading books in this country. She has launched the careers of authors, event planners, restaurateurs, chefs, talk show hosts, interior designers and many others. I can’t find a downside to any of that. And she did it with a positive attitude, great listening skills and a determination to lift people up, rather than pull them down. And really…aren’t there already enough forces in our culture trying to pull people down? Like the writers of the Newsweek cover story, for example. If some of Oprah’s detractors would funnel that negative energy into something akin to what she has done in her life, we would all be the better for it.

Newsweek is floundering. I’m sorry to see it happen, but I feel safe in my prediction that when the media dust settles, Newsweek will have a respectable place in the journalism history books, but Oprah will continue speaking and the masses will continue to tune in.