[TonyB06]

Talk radio's response predictable
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Cincinnati Post staff report
12-5-03

While the Nathaniel Jones confrontation video makes the rounds on national TV, Cincinnati talk radio has responded to the controversial death in a predictable, almost deja vu way, not adding much to the debate. But it sure does make some noise.

"Every black man in Cincinnati should feel those blows. Every black man in America should feel them," said a caller Thursday to WDBZ-AM (1230), the station aimed at the African-American community.

It's very different over at WLW, where Bill Cunningham reigns as the conservative afternoon talk host. "I see a miscreant, a fellow high on PCP and embalming fluid turning into a violent offender beating on police," said Cunningham.

The local talk radio world is indeed a tale of two cities even though we all live in the same one. "Just as the city is divided by race, the talk stations are divided by race," said Lincoln Ware, operations manager and 10 a.m.-1 p.m. host at "The Buzz."

"About 75 percent of our callers are pro-police," said Mike McConnell, WLW's 9 a.m. -- noon host. Ware agreed that about the same number of his callers are opposed to the way the police reacted in the Jones case.

It is the nature of talk radio to polarize. And when stories with racial overtones become news, you can expect the area's two main talk outlets -- WLW and WDBZ _ -- will fall into the party line.

It's not even the talk hosts that encourage the hyper-rhetoric. Callers of a particular political persuasion know where to turn and where to sound off in support of their views.

Both McConnell and Ware agree the Jones video immediately became a sort of Rorschach test for both sides of the issue with talk radio tracking the results. "We've basically had people calling who look at the video and see two completely different things," said McConnell. "A good percentage of the audience sees those who are anti-cop as pig-headed. Those who are backing Jones or think it's brutality see everybody else as some sort of Nazis. Those are the two divisions and there's no one who falls in the middle."

Of course, there are those in the middle. They just don't call talk radio. People who see gray areas or are undecided soak it all in before they make a decision. But that kind of thinking is usually not what talk radio is about.

For example, Ware, who may be a more conservative talk host on a station where most black callers are definitely riled up about the current issue, often tries to get callers to see the gray areas. "Is it racism or just a failure for these cops to be able to communicate with black people?" he asked one caller this week. It was a searching question that asked volumes, trying to get people to make intellectual distinctions and in turn ask more questions.

Ware said he is a fence sitter on the Jones case, constantly telling his audience to wait for the facts to come in, but he acknowledges it's not popular to come off as "pro-police" on The Buzz.

"I try to put out a true fact and it looks like I'm siding with police and many of my callers don't like that," Ware said. "It's frustrating because some people just don't want to hear the true facts."

Still Ware, with a 25-plus year career on Cincinnati radio, remains sensitive to the black community, understanding sometimes there is just a need to sound off. "They really need to vent. It may have been something that happened to them in the past dealing with the police and this just brings it out. Here's their chance to get back. They want to call a radio station and say, 'Here's what they did to me, and they are wrong on this one, too.'"

In some ways, the national coverage of the issue has probably not helped the local debate. The video showing police officers repeatedly striking Jones with their nightsticks has literally been everywhere from Court TV to the cable news channels.

Local TV stations could be said to be showing more restraint and responsibility with the use of the video and editing than the national media. For example, one quick CNN edit showed police beating Jones but did not include his aggressiveness at police.

There is no secret as to why the national networks have jumped on the story.
"There's a video, and it is Rodney King-reminiscent," said McConnell. "You have white cops wailing on a black guy. It plays so well to that, and it's such higher quality, and you have multiple angles to the tape. It's almost inexhaustible for the networks to play."

"With the competition for viewers on the cable news channels being so keen, as distasteful as this sounds, it makes for good video, for good television," said Darryl Parks, WLW program director. "That's why it's being shown over and over and over again.

Parks said that ever since the April 2001 riots following the shooting death of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas by a Cincinnati police officer, the station has made sure black community voices have been heard when such stories break to counter the predictable conservative positions of McConnell and Cunningham.

"We do make a concerted effort to have African-American community voices," Parks said. "We want to make sure we are more broad-based."

Parks said, for example, in the past week the station has featured extensive talk interviews with such black leaders as Human Relations Commission head Cecil Thomas, Rev. Jesse Lee Petersen, and attorney Ken Lawson, who is representing Jones' family. Meanwhile, the network TV talk shows have been acting like the local radio talk wars, making stars of the local radio media and often featuring the polarized viewpoints.

Ware appeared on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show Thursday night. Cunningham has been on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes" twice this week, including a debate on Hannity's national radio show with activist Nate Livingston on Wednesday.

Parks said the station has had calls from CNN and MSNBC also looking for talk radio hosts to appear on upcoming segments.
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Interesting to see how the GC community may or may not mirror this. I think most posters are Af-Am, but culturally, and to some degree politically, we're all over the board.

Growing up in Cincinnati, Lincoln Ware has been a solid guy for a long time, and I'm glad to see him trying to bring some clarity to this situation.