So this is what it sounds like when the doves fry…
“I thought, ‘What an arrogant prick, saying that to me.’ This institutionalised guy telling me I would never be heard of again. Every day I get up in the morning now I think of Leighton. And I work harder because of it, if that’s possible. I think, ‘F*** you. F*** you, you old prick’.”
…’incandescent with rage’ is my favorite colour of the rainbow. I’ve always had a soft spot for Garner, he’s not regurgitating bloated right wing rhetoric so much any more, and he actually gets some hard issues across. The contempt so many institutionalized media barons have for those trying to step up is righteously given the bash by Garner’s extraordinary hate rant aimed at Leighton Smith.
I suddenly have a brand new respect for Duncan.
The reason Radio Live has never fired is because red neck radio is full. If you are a knuckle dragging right wing clown, you want your mindless bullshit rhetoric full brewed, you don’t want a diet version. Radio Live doesn’t have any great left wing champions (the last one, Wallace Chapman has been headhunted by Radio NZ), so it’s left with a few moderates pretending to be balanced and that isn’t appealing to ZB nutters. If Radio Live wanted to raise its ratings, it would seek to put in loud lefty hosts who would then take audience share from Radio NZ, rather than trying to compete with ZB.
The commercial media market place in NZ is at saturation point with right wing pundits. Paul Henry and Mike Hosking’s return to TV shows just how out of sync the right wing bias in media has now become, and Radio Live will continue to languish in the ratings if they are only trying to compete for ZB listeners using bait that is not as right wing as ZB can produce. If Radio Live learns anything from Radio NZ poaching Wallace Chapman from them, it would be to start trying to woo RNZ listeners back with left wing talkback hosts.
In an election year as close as this one, why wouldn’t Radio Live management seek to increase their ratings by appealing to those lefties who are rallying and wanting change rather than constantly losing the redneck rhetoric game to ZB?
thanks for posting this Martyn, I will try to find and support Radio Live.
thanks also for building and running the excellent daily blog
best wishes to all
Stop calling bigots “rednecks”. It’s an elitist expression of contempt—the same as calling them “peasants”.
Could the person who gave my comment a negative vote please justify why he or she did that?
Wasn’t me Morrissey, but if you must be a pedant the meaning of “Redneck” has changed over the years. Since the 2000s–
“The term is used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal.”
–William Safire, Safires Political Dictionary 2008.
And some Westies and rural sheep shaggers in NZ self identify as “Rednecks” taking pride in the moniker.
Myself I don’t like reactionaries boneheaded opinions or Safire’s use of “degrade”, describe is better.
Safire is one of the most cynical political propagandists ever, but he is correct in identifying the source of this anti-worker slur: it is the eastern Democratic Party elite that used this contemptible expression—contemptible when used as a term of abuse, that is—in the 1960s. The same credulous drips, in other words, that have flocked behind that fraud that presently sits in the White House.
I’m glad to know you’re not the person who has down-voted my comment. It’s only one person, you can be sure of it—in fact I’d bet Bill Clinton’s monthly whoring budget on it.
Ha! He—or is it a she?—is at it again! My very own (sad) stalker.
I agree Garner has become more balanced in his approach, his items about the 10 forestry workers killed on the job this year is an example (an issue brushed under the carpet by other radio stations), and lets face it listening to Leighton Smith, Mike Hoskins, and Larry Williams is a bit like listening to a National Party political broadcast at times, and these radio commentators are on air at times which arguably have the greatest radio audience
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