I had to laugh at this exchange on CNN�s Sunday Late Edition between Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Wolf Blitzer:
SANCHEZ: �I believe that we made mistakes. The media certainly is not in our hands any longer, and, in particular, radio talk shows where that is completely in the opposition’s hands, and they use it effectively against us.
BLITZER: But, Loretta, when you say the media — when you say the media is not in your hands, are you saying that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN are hostile to Democrats?
SANCHEZ: No, that’s not what I said. I’m saying that — if you would let me finish — that the majority of people are now receiving a lot of their information out of radio. And the radio isn’t in the hands of the Democrats anymore.
Many years ago, the Republicans made a very effective play. They sat down. They made a strategy. They decided they were going to put big thinktanks around, that they were going to fund them. They decided that they would buy radio, that they would use that to talk to people. And people drive in their cars, they’re listening to the radio all the time. They’re getting a lot of information that way.
You know, networks are losing — you know, they’re getting less and less viewership.
The transcript doesn�t quite do justice to how depressed Sanchez sounded when she said �the media is not in our hands any longer.� But the interview did make me want to learn more about this sinister, so-called �radio� device and how the government can curb its pernicious influence.
Seriously, though, isn�t it overstating the case – and more than a little rude to Al Franken, who was on the very same panel � for a Democrat to say that radio is �completely in the opposition�s hands.� Comments like these would also seem to belie Sanchez�s claims.
What’s funny, of course, is the implicit assumption that the media should be exclusively in liberal hands.
There’s also NPR, which isn’t exactly part of the Vast Right-Wing conspiracy.