Talker's Magazine The quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).
The Advocate No, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.
Media Matters Documentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.
Orcinus home of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups
Hominid Views "People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.
Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.
Howie in Seattle Howie Martin is the Abe Linkin' of progressive Seattle.
Streaming Radio Guide Hellishly long (5795!) list of radio streaming, steaming on the Internets.
The Naked Loon News satire -- The Onion in the Seattle petunia patch.
Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."
The Maddow Blog Here's the hyper-interactive La Raych of MSNBC. daily show-vids, freakishly geeky research, and classy graphics.
Northwest Broadcasters The AM, FM, TV and digital broadcasters of Northwest Washington, USA and Southwest British Columbia, Canada. From Kelso, WA to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, BC - call letters, formats, slogans, networks, technical data, and transmitter maps.
Plus "recent" news.
News Corpse The Internet's chronicle of media decay.
The Moderate Voice The voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.
News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.
HistoryLink Fun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.
right-wing blogs we like
The Reagan Wing Hearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.
Orbusmax inexhaustible Drudgery of NW conservative news
The Radio Equalizer prolific former Seattle KVI, KIRO talk host speaks authoritatively about radio.
Weekday with Steve Scher's live performance with Stephen Tobolowsky Friday sounded pretty good.
Tobolowsky is the self-satisfied b-actor/a-grade storyteller who finally wormed his smarmy way into our collective Sunday afternoon (KUOW 1-2p) hearts with his tales of Hollywood and Texas.
KUOW said the tickets would be $4. That sounded great, so we went up to the Neptune's site, where we were more than off-put that a $4 ticket actually costs $9! The unexplained "convenience fee" ($2) plus the "order process fee" ($3) more than doubled the price of the ticket.
Gone is the KOMO-fied wallpaper that was KIRO’s NW Weekends. Larry Rice is long gone, his replacement Josh Kerns gets to sleep in.
They won’t be paying any live hosts on weekends starting Saturday. KIRO announced the changes Wednesday calling the new weekend fare: “Learn. Laugh. Relax.” We would add, "Drink." That is, if you had any expectation of any new or live content.
What’s new?
An hour each of morning news anchors Bill Radke (Sat. 6-7a, noon-1p; Sun. 2-3p) and Linda Thomas’ (Sat. 8-9a, Sun. 3-4p) conglommed news bits from the week past. The same (Sat 1-2p Sunday 4-5p) for Rachel Belle’s fetching little feetches, Ring My Belle (or I’ll kill you, foo’) will be amagamated from the previous week's Ron & Don Show.
Feliks Banel of HistoryMediaHistory made this video backstage at the live show of Weekday with Steve Scher (KUOW m-f, 9a-12p) on Friday last at Town Hall. If you're interested in what these people look like, take a look, it's a happy place.
BlatherWatch avoided this show - it's been only a month since we went to the last one, and frankly, the thrill was, if not gone, sated - at least for a few years.
But we listened-in while we were getting our pedicure, and there was dear, old book babe Nancy Pearl, who so adorably tells a Little Joke in Feliks' video.
She was great, but then... there were folksingers.
It must have been someone's idea of "creative radio." They'd found a band of folksingers: real ones... the womenfolk with laced bodices and long hair; the men in tunics and stringed instrumentalia.
They sang their "ditties," that was bad enough, but then producers got them a-interruptin' the talk-talk during the 2nd hour news discussion with baffling, yet stupid, musical interjections.
We know, we know, folksingers are expected to make stupid, musical interjections, but these folksingers, - we fucking kid you not - insisted on singing, in 3 or 4 separate and lengthy interruptions, their interpretations of 3 or 4 separate and lengthy chapters (Ch. 9 & 10; 12-13) of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present, a fabulous basic text for us liberals but fucking maddening when sung into the middle of a discussion of Seattle's tunnel project and the debt ceiling!
If these public radio dopes ever had to defend liberalism like we do every damn day, they wouldn't be offering up slowballs for wingers to hit out of the park such as folksingers singing Howard Zinn on public radio! It's as stereotypical as inviting the NAACP to an on-air watermelon-eating contest.
We love when Weekday tries new tricks, remember their "radio mimes?" This one, however, sent us scurrying for Dave & Luke (KIROFM m-f, 9a-12p).
(We have been known to occasionally be a-pluckin' a plectrum with a clawhammer... however, we do it in private, our children don't even know we know all the words to Where Have All the Flowers Gone. Folksingers should be seen, not heard. On second thought- we don't want to look at them either).
After his inauspicious ending on Seattle's public radio KUOW, windy weatherman Cliff Mass has been acquired (we don't know if he's being paid this time) by Tacoma's KPLU. ("NPR News and all that jazz").
His 5-minute segment will follow Birdnote in the 9 o'clock hour starting September 2.
No more live radio free-form to get him in off-topic and in trouble: Cliff will have a weekly 5 minutes on tape and with a minder, Keith Seinfeld, a veteran (Seattle Times, News Trib) science journalist who's no doubt happy to get the gig. No politics, just science. Scripted, edited, pre-recorded.
(photo: Steve Scher, Knute Berger, Eli Sanders, Joni Balter)
The trees were leafed out on 8th Avenue, the sun spreckled through the First Hill shade. It was a comfy morning at Seattle's Town Hall... at least for us.
That's because we're an aged, middle-class, liberal, white male in the very henhouse of Seattle progressive sensibilities: a live-show audience of KUOW's Weekday with Steve Scher.
As a revolution, it might be a little tepid, but it's a revolution nonetheless.
So far, le petit stink the Cliff Mass firing last month has only inspired creation of a couple of Facebook pages against KUOW and it's marquis morning show, Weekday with Steve Scher.
It was a spectacle such as spectacles go on Channel 13's on the 10 o'clock news.
There, amongst the murderers in their felony pajamas, the abused pets with their pleading eyes, auto accident scenes wrapped in yellow tape, (and, ironically, a frenetic weather report delivered with eye-popping digitation) was UW climatology professor Cliff Mass lecturing to the masses about math ed.
He's still trying to climb back into the news hole by complaining that KUOW is spreading 'misinformation' about him. As recently as Tuesday, he was still begging KUOW to reinstate him on his blog, and trying to stoke the fires he built on his Facebook pages. His fans say they'll be some 'action' (picketing something?) on Monday afternoon. They're talking about approaching KUOW underwriters. Nothing, in the end, will transpire.
(If we could just have a moment to speak with Cliff... just leave us alone for a minute...'kay?
Cliff: It's over, baby. You were last week. Now it's this week and besides, the real world of radio doesn't have tenure. After your original screw-up, you said angry things about Steve- that precludes you ever going on the station again. KUOW doesn't like angry things. Did you think they'd fire Scher and re-hire you??? Of course not. Besides, Jeff the Program Director backs up Steve; Guy, the News Director backs up Jeff; the Board backs up everybody. Don't think about moving the Board... you think climate change is slow-moving? It's a tornado compared to the KUOW Board. And, of course, they DO NOT LIKE to mess with the station's day-to-day. They gladly leave all that up to the same trusted folks who have each other's backs on the canning of you. You said you had other offers on teevee and radio?... take 'em! Although, gotta say it- your post-employment sour grapes might not look all that great on a broadcast resume. Buddy, you were toast from day one; now, please, know you are toast, quitcherbitchin' and get on with your life. Don't sound like a kvetsher. You're better than that.
News organizations HATE it when they become the news.
But KUOW couldn't ignore the Cliff Mass flap in the end, so they sic-ed veteran reporter Deb Wang on the story. She talked to a Poynter Institute ethic consultant and called in a special editor from outside the KUOW newsroom. Here's Wang from the news dep't Facebook page talking about tackling the story that was sticky-wicket to report at best.
(photo: Deborah Wang)
I’ve been a reporter for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve ever covered my own organization. It’s a tricky assignment and fraught with difficulties. The potential for conflict of interest is an obvious one. The first call I made was to Kelly McBride, an expert on journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute. She gave me a rundown of best practices for how to cover your own organization: 1) stay independent, 2) use your best journalistic judgment, 3) strive to serve your audience and not your organization, 4) work with an outside editor, and 5) communicate clearly with your audience how you covered the story. That advice, and in particular point #3, stayed in my head as I reported this. A couple of the people I interviewed expressed doubts about my ability to report on the issue fairly. I tried very, very hard to be fair and balanced, and also to tell a good story. To edit the story, we turned to Kate Concannon. She is a former Western Bureau Chief for NPR and now is a freelance editor, with no connection to KUOW.
Gotta say, seen through the porcelain eye of a good reporter, KUOW's position is pretty solid. Listen or read a transcript of Wang's back-strainingly fair piece here.
(Couldn't help being reminded of how different public radio's journalistic standards are than KIROFM's, as displayed in this story)
Weatherwise, no problema, man: We can google that up in an instant... or maybe we could be like George Carlin's Hippy Dippy Weatherman: "Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."
KIROFM 97.3 Multi-format: news and nearly all local talk. This is where classic KIRO AM news talk radio went... hopefully, not to die. The home of Dave Ross & Luke Burbank, Dori Monson, Ron & Don, Frank Shiers, Bill Radke, Linda Thomas, Tony Miner and George Noory.
KUOW FM 94.9 Seattle's foremost public radio news and talk.
KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.
KTTH am 770 KHz Right wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.
KPTK am 1090 KHz Syndicated liberal talk. Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Norman Goldman fill in the large hole to the left on Northwest radio dial.
KLFE AM 1590 kHz Syndicated right-wing 2nd stringers like Mark Levin, Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Dennis Miller and Hugh Hewitt inhabit this timid-voiced neighbor honker for your radio enjoyment (unless you're behind something large like Costco).
KOMOAM News, traffic, Ken Schram and John Carlson.
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