TNR Trashes Air America in Front Page Article! [View All]

DAILY EXPRESS
All Talk
by Jason Zengerle


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Only at TNR Online | Post date 04.01.04 E-mail this article

It probably doesn't bode well for a purportedly enjoyable radio show when its most entertaining segment is one featuring Al Gore. But that was the case on the maiden voyage of "The O'Franken Factor," the much ballyhooed liberal talk radio show, hosted by Al Franken, which, along with the much ballyhooed liberal talk radio network Air America, debuted on Wednesday. About two-and-a-half hours into the three-hour show Franken was talking with his in-studio guest Michael Moore when the former vice president called in to congratulate Franken on his new radio career. Franken, seizing the opportunity of having Moore and Gore on the show at the same time, quickly turned the conversation to the filmmaker's support of Ralph Nader in 2000. "Is there something you'd like to say to the vice president?" Franken asked Moore, clearly inviting him to apologize to Gore. But Moore declined, first telling Gore how sorry he was, not about backing Nader, but about the Supreme Court's decision--and then launching into a long, convoluted tale about how Nader had promised not to campaign in swing states and once Nader broke that promise Moore himself went to Florida and urged Floridians to vote for Gore even though Moore told them he still planned to vote for Nader in New York. When Franken pointed out that this wasn't much of an apology, Moore asked Gore, "How do you feel about what I'm saying?" Gore replied with exasperation, "What are you saying?"

And that was probably the highlight of the show. The other two hours and fifty-five minutes consisted of a lot of unenlightening back and forth about current events between Franken and his sidekick, Minnesota Public Radio veteran Katherine Lanpher; a long and desultory interview with 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey; and an initially funny but, after continuous flogging over the course of three hours, eventually tiresome skit about locking Ann Coulter in the radio network's green room. Throw in a mix of phone calls, some jabs at Bill O'Reilly, and a taped interview with an elderly Minnesota couple who are the parents of Franken's best friend and you have "The O'Franken Factor."

If this doesn't sound like great radio, that's because it isn't. Part of the problem with Franken's show is simply that he's sorely lacking in radio experience. Although Air America's founders proclaim their admiration for Rush Limbaugh's broadcasting skills, if not his politics, in Franken they have turned their signature show over to a broadcasting novice. (Limbaugh had been on the radio for close to two decades before he went national with his political talk show.) And, while Air America has clearly tried to offset Franken's inexperience with the radio veteran Lanpher, at times her mastery of the medium merely serves to highlight Franken's own unfamiliarity with it--like when she told him to "zip it." But this, of course, is a fixable problem. Franken will presumably get more comfortable the longer he's on the air. And, while there are some things about him that will never be entirely suitable for the medium--like his not-exactly-baritone voice--radio isn't brain science, and I'd imagine that after one month he will sound a whole lot more polished than on his first day.

But there are two other problems with "The O'Franken Factor," ones that may not be as easily surmountable as Franken's radio inexperience, and those are his personality and his politics. While Franken has had moments of extreme behavior--like when he tackled a heckler at a Howard Dean rally in New Hampshire or when he lit into Bill O'Reilly at the BookExpo America convention--he is not, generally speaking, a shouter. And as Russell Shorto noted in his very smart profile of Franken in The New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago, Franken is actually pretty moderate. Although he's obviously a very partisan Democrat, he's not, as Shorto writes, "an extreme lefty but rather a devout party man, one who says, for example, that the Democratic Leadership Council is a moral force for good."


Rest of this trash is at....

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=zengerle040104