Change the Subject

Maybe we shouldn't talk about it.

By way of introduction: It was always a cardinal rule of talk radio that there were a couple of topics that had to be avoided, namely gun control and abortion. It wasn't that those topics weren't important and it wasn't that they wouldn't get response; the problem was that while the phone lines would instantly light up, you'd get the wrong response, in the form of organized callers spouting official positions from whichever side they represented. Same talking points, over and over. And the net result would be that a) nobody's mind would be changed, b) the show would be boring, and c) casual listeners would go away, because who needs a parade of talking points in their lives?

I was reminded about that by Jon Grayson of KMBZ in Kansas City, who wrote a Facebook post the other day saying that COVID-19, masks, and the vaccine are the new "topics from hell." You bring them up, the calls and texts flood in, and they're all the same. He's on the air and I'm not, but I suspect he's right. And it's a dilemma, because mask mandates and vaccination issues are front and center in the news, as they should be, yet endlessly talking about them is a recipe for shrinking your audience to a small core of mostly senior true believers, which one look at the cume numbers will confirm.

Worse, most talk hosts have chosen to talk about the lingering pandemic in a way that makes them, and talk radio, look really, really bad, and before I get into this, let me just wish Phil Valentine, still in the hospital at this writing, a speedy and complete recovery. Nobody should have to deal with what this virus does to people, and I hope Phil comes through soon. His regrets about how he talked about vaccinations before falling ill should be instructive to those of you who are still doing the same thing, but if this hasn't shocked you into your senses, I'll take a brief detour from the main point of this column and spell it out for you.

My cursory tour of the talk radio dial lately has turned up one thing -- call it a crutch -- that many of you are doing. It's the Tucker Carlson Memorial "Just Asking Questions" cop-out. I hear it over and over, a variation on "I'm not saying you should or shouldn't get the vaccine, but...," followed by loaded questions designed to scare people off. It's what Phil did that he regrets now, and so many of you are doing it that it's become a talk radio clichÈ. I even tuned into one show that's marketed as being less stridently political than the competition and THEY were doing it. One host wrote a column that defended talk radio by saying he puts "experts" on the air as a public service, then used as an example a doctor who pushes a COVID "cure" that's been debunked. That's not public service, that's not "just asking questions," that's just taking a position without having the guts to say you're taking a position, and doing something that can harm people who take what they hear on the radio as gospel. And many do, just as you'll find people citing YouTube videos and Facebook randos as their sources. (Want proof? Go check the comments on Facebook from Phil's listeners under posts about his condition. Many of them aren't changing their minds after months of "just asking questions.")

Whatever you think of the vaccine, the way talk radio has handled the topic has generally been abysmal. Maybe you can't bring it up without both sides being intransigent and parroting talking points. That, then, is an argument for not talking about it at all, not as a topic for debate, because it's the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and if nobody's being entertained, you're talking to a shrinking core of an audience. (As WKLB Boston's Jonathan Wier said in the comments on Grayson's post, "All callers no listeners is a thing.")

But you can't ignore it, can you? That's one final point: What has radio (not just talk radio, but all of radio) been doing to get people vaccinated? This might be the one time that radio's experience in doing remotes and promotions would be helpful, but other than isolated individual promotions and one-off events, I haven't seen the radio industry rally behind a concerted effort to address one of the biggest health crises we'll ever encounter. I didn't see radio step up and help people who wanted the shots in the early stages and couldn't find them or live in areas where the resources were scarce get vaccinated. That was a no-brainer of a public service opportunity, and radio didn't jump in as an industry (yes, I know, the NAB had some resources online, but this was a major opportunity for much more and it sort of drifted away).

Or maybe you've come up with a way to talk about shots and masks that isn't repetitive and counterproductive and less than entertaining. Great, do it, then tell everyone else how you've managed to pull that off. For me, though, and for, I suspect, a lot of your audience, it's become either unpleasant noise or harmful, or both. There are other things to talk about. Maybe you should.

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Other things to talk about, you say? Why, yes, and the place to find them is All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep section, which you'll find by clicking here, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

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One update: Next week, I was scheduled to be at Podcast Movement in Nashville, hosting a panel about podcast networks. Due to last minute changes, I will not be there in person, but I am still scheduled to host that panel, only in virtual form from here outside L.A. Click here to register for either the in-person event or the virtual version, and join us for a good talk either way.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
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