Sean Hannity – Pursuit of Liberty

An Island in the Midst of an Ocean

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When I complained about the tone of the Sean Hannity show a couple of weeks ago Frank Staheli pointed me towards the Neal Boortz show broadcast on Freedom 570. Over the last couple of weeks I have been listening to the station. I have heard many of the shows as I have listened at various times and found that I was really enjoying the tone of the shows being broadcast – it was an essentially civil island in the midst of the ocean of conservative talk radio. Neal Boortz is not my favorite of their shows, but his tone was so much nicer than Hannity.

Today I discovered a mud puddle in the midst of the Freedom 570 lineup. I drove home earlier than usual today and heard the Todd Schnitt show for the first time which had more of a Hannity tone. While it may not be fully representative of the show I was disappointed to hear Schnitt’s coverage of the apparent uproar over a picture of Meghan McCain that got posted on the internet (by Meghan apparently). Schnitt had to take the time to rave about Meghan’s physique and insist that the picture get a more prominent place on his website.

I have not seen the picture, but I have enough information from what I head from Schnitt before turning the show off to comment on the situation. Schnitt has demonstrated his immaturity and lack of class by the types of comments he felt compelled to make. Meghan has shown her naivety by even posting the image and acting as if the uproar was not predictable. Apparently some have called her a slut – without even going to see the picture I think it’s safe to say that she was just plain foolish. The only good that came out of it is that I now know to pass on opportunities to listen to Schnitt.

My Way or the Highway

I have come to the conclusion that any broadcast news is going to be full of content that is designed to help listeners think their are being informed when in reality there is no substance to the content. Usually the headlines are enough to get the point across. That’s why I like getting news from feeds where I can glance at the headline and only take time for the full story (video, audio, or text) if the headline promises information that I don’t already have.

Because of this conclusion I no longer leave the radio on the same station all the time (for what little time I listen to it). Today I found myself listening to Sean Hannity and within 10 minutes I had confirmed why I avoid talk radio. When I first tuned in Sean was busy making sure that his listeners knew how stupid some of his previous callers were in disagreeing with his position on the news story of the moment. Seeing as I agreed with Hannity on that particular story I let it go. A few minutes later a caller voiced an opinion on another story that Hannity disagreed with. This time I had heard the caller and I got to hear the way Hannity responded to him – it was disgraceful.

Hannity badgered his caller and ignored everything the man said that he did not agree with. In this case I could not ignore Sean’s tone for two reasons – first, I heard the caller so I knew what Hannity was responding to; and second, I disagree with Hannity and think that besides being wrong he is doing a great disservice to conservatives everywhere by ruthlessly shutting down debate with anyone who disagrees with him. I accept that there are many people who believe as Sean does on that later issue and although I strongly disagree with that position I could not consider myself a decent human being if I were to shut down any opposing voices as ungraciously as I heard Sean doing today.