At a time when Iraq coverage can be summed up as War As An After Thought (nod to Mike), can we really afford to lose one of the few strong voices on the topic? That's what's happened.
Laura Flanders is the host of RadioNation with Laura Flanders (formerly The Laura Flanders Show). As readers of this site know, we never missed a Saturday broadcast. Until recently. We miss it now because it doesn't air. It did air for three hours, live, each Saturday and Sunday.
The guest list was amazing. Activists, including local activists and not just those already noted everywhere, thinkers, authors, journalists, artists. In fact, the last hour of each Saturday's broadcast featured artists. Some were already names, some were emerging. They might be film makers or playwrights or musicians. Richie Havens, Rickie Lee Jones, the Cowboy Junkies, and many others, talking about how art can reach people.
Maybe Susan Sarandon would call in? Or maybe she'd interview a member of her amazing family (Alexander, Andrew and Patrick Cockburn)? Maybe Flanders would speak with Robert Redford or Joan Baez? What she would always do is speak with callers -- "with," not "to." Some called in because they thought only Laura Flanders got it. Some called in to argue. Some called in to advise about an event that was coming up. Throughout it all, Flanders handled the calls nimbly. Years of hosting Your Call had honed her natural talents.
Media criticism? CounterSpin was Flanders' baby for years. One topic we most enjoyed in the last year or so was her reporting on what she saw going on around the country (sometimes with remote broadcasts as she proved the country was purple)
Along with being a broadcast journalist, Flanders is also an print journalist and book author. All of her years of honing her craft resulted in six hours of amazing live broadcasts each weekend. She called on every skill and gift for her opening editorials that started each broadcast. There might have been a technical glitch, it was live radio, but it was go to break, come back and pick right back up.
Before anyone panics, Laura Flanders has not died or retired. But her six hour live broadcast is now a one hour taped broadcast. As one of the few at Air America Radio from the early days, we'd see it as our loss and her getting to actually enjoy weekends. (If we think back really hard, we can remember that Saturday nights on the town can be very lively.) And we could listen to her one hour broadcast on Sunday (she's also part of The Air Americans during the week on Air America Radio, eight to midnight EST) and say, "She's earned a rest and then some."
But somehow, RadioNation with Laura Flanders didn't just lose callers, the live broadcast and five hours, it also lost what makes Flanders the amazing broadcaster she is. She truly can talk with anyone about anything. That's not shut your mouth while the guest speaks and you wait to get off your scripted zinger, that's really talk with. It's a rare skill. Doing it in a manner that appears effortlessly puts Flanders up there with a select few including Bill Moyers.
So what's our problem? When the show was reduced to one hour, Flanders' scope was reduced as well. Week after week, she's talking to writers from The Nation. Presumably, during many of their 'double issues,' Flanders will be given a Sunday off.
Now Baby Cries A Lot told The Progressive that no one at Air America had radio experience. His ego was, yet again, hanging out of his pants. (Fortunately, the lack of length meant that no one could consider it a weapon.) This was at a time when people such as Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes and Laura Flanders were on air, had been on air. As with the illegal war, Baby Cries A Lot didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
When you have a seasoned professional who can mix it up on any topic, why are you reducing her to host of an infomercial?
That's what RadioNation with Laura Flanders currently plays as. Don't get us wrong, Flanders can make it interesting. We doubt others could, but when we've listened, we've heard her continue to make interesting points, comments and ask precise questions.
The Nation magazine sponsors RadioNation with Laura Flanders and, presumably, the magazine feels the show should be used to promote the magazine. The magazine apparently feels that this now means all guests will be contributors to The Nation. That's a very scary thought considering the magazine can't address Iraq.
War resister Camilo Mejia does columns from time to time for The Progressive media project. He does not do them for The Nation. So we're guessing that means Mejia will not be on the guest list anymore. We'll guess Matthew Rothschild's name has also been crossed off. And considering the White-White nature of The Nation, we'll assume Flanders' obvious interest in addressing racial issues will now be overridden by the magazine.
This was actually addressed last week but appeared to go over someone's head. (Addressed verbally.) So let's try to keep it at the most basic.
If the magazine sees the program as a vehicle to bring awareness and interest to and in the magazine, they need to Let Laura Be Laura. No one needs to hear an hour each week on what's in The Nation magazine. No one needs an infomercial. It's also true, pay attention here, most of The Nation isn't written by marquee names. Among the big names are Alexander Cockburn (who does lengthier columns at CounterPunch), Katha Pollitt, David Corn, Jeremy Schaill and Naomi Klein. We're really dreading that Flanders may have to soon speak with the Cindy Brady of the faux left whose on air behavior in the past (with both Janeane Garofalo and Naomi Klein) came off sexist and demeaning. We don't doubt that Flanders could handle herself, we just don't think she should ever have to be subjected to that.
Manhattan Transfer (whose members have previously appeared on the show) are a draw. In the old days, she could speak with them or Kate Taylor or any number of people. And each person brought a following to the show.
Pay attention here, when Rickie Lee Jones made a very rare appearance on Flanders' show and actually performed live, that got attention.
If the magazine truly wanted to reach out to a larger audience, the radio program wouldn't play like an infomercial. One guest from The Nation is more than enough. Allowing Flanders to interview the usual mix (in a one hour forum) would mean that an audience would be tuning in who might not normally pick up the magazine. Someone tuning in for Penny Lang, Toshi Reagon, Anasa Troutman, Rhiannon, Wallace Shawn, Reno, Ian Inaba, Moby, Paul Krassner,
Greg Palast, Danny Glover, etc. is someone who can be exposed to the magazine. Those potential listeners, if they've never heard of the magazine, are not going to be seeking out an hour long show that is basically Read Along With The Nation.
One guest from The Nation with a mix of others would alert people to The Nation magazine. Airing an hour broadcast focused on the writers of one magazine is a recipe for ratings disaster and if you disbelieve that ask yourself where Mother Jones Radio is today? (Air America Radio stopped broadcasting that program.) It should further be noted that Matthew Rothschild, as host of the half-hour The Progressive Radio, does not feel the need to sit down each week with writers for that magazine (The Progressive). He rightly realizes that you need interesting guests to make for lively radio and that an infomercial for the magazine he's in charge of would bore the listeners.
It really strikes us as a vanity move on the part of The Nation, not at all dissimilar from The Journal Editorial Report which, thanks to Kenneth Tomlinson, briefly aired on PBS and featured those madcap cuts ups from the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. It did not draw viewers.
Why do we think this a move made by the magazine and not Flanders' herself? This week, on The Air Americans, she reported live from the Social Forum in Atlanta. This is Flanders who reported live from in Nairobi for RadioNation with Laura Flanders. If Flanders was interested in broadcasting live from Nairobi, we'll bet that she would have been happy to report, for RadioNation with Laura Flanders, from Atlanta. But listeners no longer get that kind of coverage. Instead, we get a writer for The Nation talking about what made him or her decide to write a piece for the magazine "on newsstands now" and what they found out. That doesn't make for lively radio and it doesn't steer people to the magazine.
Even worse, it deprives Flanders of the entertaining and informative mix she's pioneered throughout her time at Air America Radio.
Worst of all, due to the scope of The Nation, it's taking away one of the few strong voices we have had on Iraq. Someone who could and did note it each program. To really underscore this point, we think, having reported from Atlanta already this week (for The Air Americans), if Flanders was determining the guests for her show, Sunday's program might offer Iraq Veterans Against the War's Liam Madden and Adam Kokesh, Why? They were in Atlanta on Saturday.
Iraq Veterans Against the War are currently conducting a summer base tour (next stops: Fort Benning in Columbus, GA on July 1st at 7:00 pm; a fundraiser in Philadelphia on June 3rd at 6:00 pm; a fundraiser in NYC on July 5th at 7:00 pm; the Naval Sub Marine Base in Groton, CT on July 6th at 7:00 pm; and concluding at Fort Drum in NY on July 8th at 4:00 pm). Kokesh could have spoken about being arrested by Fort Jackson police on Friday for wearing an Iraq Veterans Against the War t-shirt. By taking Flanders out of the world and forcing her to chat with Nation writers, we all suffer. We now have to wait from Friday until Monday to get news because what is weekend radio but everyone on vacation? With few exceptions, there is no place to hear news (a half-hour newscast that some Pacifica stations offer on Saturday and Sunday really isn't covering the world). Flanders was ripping through the news when her program was live. Noting the things you'd hear about on Monday, when the rest of the media went back to work. Maybe someone will cover Kokesh being arrested for wearing a t-shirt on Monday? Maybe they'll have other 'pressing' topics to cover come Monday. It's really amazing that the left takes the weekends off. (Don't toss out Arianna's new program -- no offense to her but Bob Kerrey? Even C.I., who knows Kerrey, is gagging right now.) They do so, as Ava and C.I. have noted before, at a time when the the networks have expand their own passes-for-news morning shows to cover the weekend.
Listeners are the ones who suffer from the changes. Flanders? Cher survived infomericals and Laura Flanders will survive this. If The Nation had any common sense, they'd back off and Let Laura Be Laura.
