[MAGI]

Thom Hartmann:
Compliments from Buzzflash:

http://buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/062

Thom Hartmann -- Air America's Renaissance Man Talk Show Host
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 6:02am. Interviews
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

The arguments that are put forth by the conservatives on my program are the arguments that progressives encounter constantly out there in the world.

So it's not so much that I'm beating this guy up on your behalf. It's rather that he and I are having a discussion so that the extremes of the issue and the depth of the issue can be illuminated, so that for every one of his talking points, or every dimension of his perspective, I can provide the alternative dimension or the alternative talking point. My listeners then have a better tool kit for interacting with the conservatives in their lives ... At the end of the day, you still work in the cubicle next to the guy, or he's still your brother-in-law, or in my case, was my late Dad.

-- Air America Radio Host Thom Hartmann

* * *


Now more than ever, after the devastating Democratic Capitol Hill capitulation to a dimwit in the White House -- who has poll ratings lower than a limbo bar ten feet under water -- on Iraq, we need progressive radio. It is our one small beachhead into mass media, beyond the Internet (except for Keith Olbermann, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report).

Too many progressives cheer on the idea of progressive radio, but don't or can't listen to it in their hometowns. Well, for one thing, most progressive radio programs are streamed live online, or you can pay a small fee in some cases to listen to the archives. So, no excuses please!

With this interview with Thom Hartmann, who replaced Al Franken on the Air America Radio network, BuzzFlash is beginning a series of talks with some of the progressive radio hosts who are favorites of our readers.

At BuzzFlash, we hear a lot of scuttlebut about the politics and business infighting in the small progressive radio "industry," but we keep the gossip and criticism to ourself. We aren't interested in harming ANY progressive radio host. We want to help build the audience for progressive radio up, not pull the house down just while the rafters are being raised.

With that said, we should note two trends that we believe portend well for progressive radio. 1) The emergence of "brand name" hosts with their own distinctive styles. Ultimately, progressive radio is embodied in individual on-air talent. Radio listeners have allegiances to hosts and individual programs, and clearly some hosts are starting to gain noteworthy followings, despite the financial and corporate challenges still facing progressive radio. 2) There is competition emerging among backers of progressive radio. This is an indication that people who want to make a profit are starting to feel that progressive radio has a chance to make money. Once some progressive radio programs start turning a profit, it will be a whole new ballgame. It's hard to keep something that is "bankable" down.

But to be profitable progressive radio programs need more listeners. That's where you come in.

We'll be providing, in our nationally recognized BuzzFlash interview series, a forum for you to meet some progressive talk show hosts. It's your job to listen to them for awhile (and we guess that at least 1/4 of our readership has), and decide which ones you want to listen to regularly.

We might add that we listen, when we can, to everyone who we will interview.

The interviews will be stretched out over several weeks (Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller and Mike Malloy are coming up next).

We begin with our colleague and official monthly book reviewer at BuzzFlash.com, Thom Hartmann.

* * *

BuzzFlash: Where can readers of BuzzFlash find out about where and when they can listen to you -- when you're on, and what stations?


Thom Hartmann: At ThomHartman.com or AirAmerica.com.


BuzzFlash: You have two programs now. Can you explain the difference and where you're located when they're on?



I'm going to post the whole interview, but can't now. Feel free to do so if you have the time, anyone.
Thom Hartmann is one great representative of We The People

[FDRfollower]

That's a good idea. Please do Magi.

[MAGI]

Thom Hartmann with Buzzflash: #2

BuzzFlash: You have two programs now. Can you explain the difference and where you're located when they're on?


Thom Hartmann: For the last couple of years, I've been doing a 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. program on KPOJ, which is a 25,000-watt Clear Channel station in Portland, Oregon. I then follow that with the national show, which is now in its fifth year, which is aired live noon-3 PM ET. Starting this month, Carl Wolfson, who is a longtime progressive activist, a great guy, and a professional comedian who has done radio, is taking over most of the morning show. I will still play a role in it, but it's not going to be my own morning show anymore. I'll be focusing on doing the national show.

BuzzFlash: You started five years ago, but the relationship you've had with Air America has changed. How?


Thom Hartmann: We started the show before there was an Air America. When I started the program, I wrote an article called "Talking Back to Talk Radio" that was published by Common Dreams in 2002. It laid out how the rest of talk radio could be both programmatically and economically viable, and it became part of their business plan for AnShell Media, which later became Air America. We thought we should put our money where our mouth is, nobody else was doing this. Let's do it. As we got into it, we found out that there were a few other people doing it. A progressive radio network at that time was called IE America Radio. Mike Malloy was on it, and Peter Werbe, Doug Stephan, Nancy Skinner. The young Turks were on in the evenings.


We started doing our show locally in Vermont, and within three months, it was picked up by IE America. It started as a national program in 2003. We were on Sirius Satellite Radio, and I think we had 27 affiliates at the time. When Air America started, I maintained a cordial relationship with the people who were starting it, but I already had a program in the noon to 3 time slot, and they were settled on Al Franken in that time slot.

BuzzFlash: Was that noon to 3 pm Eastern or Pacific?

Thom Hartmann: Eastern Time. I decided I would just continue doing my program and let him do his program. It's a big world. There's lots of radio stations, and I really think that this progressive talk-radio format has not even begun to reach anything close to its potential.

And so did that for a couple of years. Air America eventually came to us two years ago. They said, we're carrying Al Franken, but we'd also like to carry you. I was still friendly with the people at Air America - I always have been. So we've been syndicated with Air America almost two years now.

When Al Franken decided to leave, they said, hey, we've got a program in the noon to 3 spot. It's growing. It's doing well. We've seen real substantial increases in all the markets that we've been in over the last couple of years in terms of listenership. When Al left, they went from carrying two shows in the noon to 3 slot to just one, which is my program.


BuzzFlash: So, to repeat, your show is on nationally. It is live from noon to 3 Eastern time.


Thom Hartmann: That's right. I felt that Rush Limbaugh had the right idea in that the noon to 3, Eastern day park was a very, very good time for talk radio. It was, in fact, ideal for talk radio. So we've just always been there, and we intend to stay there.

[MAGI]

#3
BuzzFlash: Nonetheless, for instance, in Chicago, where BuzzFlash is located, your program airs later in the day. In some locations, it's not aired live.


Thom Hartmann: About two-thirds of the stations that carry our programs carry us live. Most of the larger markets that we're in carry our program live -- New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Denver, Detroit, Santa Fe, Phoenix. There are a few stations that delay our show -- Washington, D.C., for example. Chicago delays the show.


BuzzFlash: That can be perplexing to people listening, because you're listening to the program, people are calling in, and you want to call in. You can't call in if the show has already been taped.


Thom Hartmann: Yes. It's one of the reasons we prefer our affiliates to carry us live.


BuzzFlash: One more point before we talk about the style of the Thom Hartmann show. IE Radio was a union network out of Detroit, and it is no longer in existence.


Thom Hartmann: Right. IE America Radio went out of business the same week that Air America started. All the programs on IE America Radio went silent, except my program. Louise and I just went independent, and we bought satellite time on the Jones satellite. To this day, we have satellite time on the Jones satellite in that noon to 3 spot. We independently produced, distributed, and marketed the show for about a year before we entered into distribution with Air America.


BuzzFlash: Louise is your wife and a producer. Would you outline your personal background in radio?


Thom Hartmann: I started in 1968 as a DJ at a Country and Western station in Lansing, Michigan. Even before that, I did campus radio for three or four months at WBRX. From there, I went to a country and Western station. At the time, I was 17, and I thought Country-Western was terrible music. I loved rock and roll. But hey, it was a job in radio. Very quickly I learned there's some wonderful country music out there. So I did that for about a year.


Then I did morning drive -- top 40 rock and roll -- for a little less than a year. I did an all-night progressive rock show for about a year. And I was a program director at a radio station for a little less than a year. Then I went back and did news for about seven years in the Lansing market. We got out of the business in 1978 when we moved to New Hampshire, and then came back into the business five years ago, when we started with this show.


BuzzFlash: Among the progressive radio talk show hosts we've listened to, everyone has a bit of a different style. How would you describe your style?


Thom Hartmann: We talk about the issues of the day. I'm offering both the news and my take on the news -- the news filtered through my perspective and a progressive perspective. We also typically take calls in the second half of every hour. Generally, we do one topic an hour. But that also is variable. Typically, we'll set up a topic in the first half hour, and turn it into kind of a town hall.

With regard to taking callers, there's two kinds of radio shows. One is caller-driven, and the other's caller-intensive. And that's a very subtle distinction that means a lot in the talk-radio business. My program is caller-intensive -- that is to say, we take a lot of calls. Half of every hour of calls is a lot.

[MAGI]

#4
Thom Hartmann/Buzzflash:
But it's not caller-driven. The callers are not defining the topic. I'm setting the topic. If we're talking about the impeachment of George Bush, and somebody calls and wants to talk about café grill standards, I typically don't take that call. Our call screener will suggest to them that they call back when we're talking about that topic.


BuzzFlash: That's the caller-driven approach -- an open line. Let's hear what's on your mind.


Thom Hartmann: Yes. And actually, we've been experimenting with doing that on Friday afternoons. If you're doing caller-driven talk radio, it's really a lazy form of talk radio, because you don't have to do much show prep, other than just knowing what's in the news that day. You don't have to plan and organize an hour. You just open the phones, and whatever people are talking about, you talk about. On Fridays, it lightens my workload a little bit when we do it, but I am concerned. The show may not have as much impact as it normally would. We're really trying to calibrate that.


BuzzFlash: You have a specific style. From our perspective, you get into historical issues. And you're an expert on the origins of the Constitution, the origins of the country. You're probably the most well-read person we know, so you really have a meaty style without being didactic. And you have a very smooth style. We've never heard you get ruffled or shrill. You tend to be very even-handed in terms of your radio style.


Thom Hartmann: When you know your material and you're comfortable with it, it's fairly difficult to get rattled. It just doesn't happen very often.

Very often talk radio hosts deal with issues as if they exist in a vacuum. They do political talk radio as if it was sports talk radio. I think that does us a disservice at a certain level. People have decided someplace -- at the RNC or the DNC or whatever -- that the liberal position on this topic is A, and the conservative position is B. And therefore we're going to take A or B -- whichever we are. It's basically my team versus your team. Again, I think that is a relatively lazy form of talk radio, and I just don't do that.


I want my listeners to understand why I'm taking this position, what's the history of this position, what's the meaning of it. What would happen over time if a larger number of people had adopted this position? Why should we care about this position? How does it influence us? What is the downside potential, as well as the upside?

We have people on as guests with whom I disagree, almost every day, and I encourage callers with whom I disagree. They always go to the first part of the line. Then my goal is to not just say, oh, you're opposed to national health care? I'm in favor of it. I'm right, you're off. I'd like to talk about why national health care fits in the framework of even the Founders' vision of this country -- you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is why this country was founded. If health care isn't part of "life," I don't know what is. And promoting the general welfare is one of the six items listed in the Preamble to the Constitution. That's why we have a government. So you can get into that, and then talk about how it works in other countries, and what we can learn from failures and successes.

By the time I'm done with the first half-hour, my listeners have a good, solid understanding of the issue. They've seen it from several different directions. They've heard the stories. They're followed the narrative. And then we take their calls and let them challenge, or suggest, or advocate.

[MAGI]

#5
Thom Hartmann/Buzzflash:
At the end of the hour, our listeners are prepared to win the water-cooler wars. They can have lunch with a brother-in-law or their friend, and be well-informed about an issue, and not be blindsided by somebody. I want them to be well-informed. And yet I don't view myself as a college professor. It has to be entertaining.


BuzzFlash: You manage to handle callers, even if they disagree and are a little bit hostile, with a great deal of tact and courtesy. You don't get combative.


Thom Hartmann: I had a combative caller today, and we ran up against a break, and I dropped the call. He called back to say, "Wait a minute. I haven't made my point, and that was unfair." So I put him back on the air.


BuzzFlash: You're very respectful of your callers. It remains a civil conversation, no matter what. And there's a lot of talk radio where the style is different.


Thom Hartmann: I don't trash people. This is a lesson that I learned from growing up with a conservative Republican father. When my Dad died, my brothers and my wife and I were in the room with him, and I sat there with my hand on his shoulder as he drew his last breath. And looking past him, there were a bunch of pictures on the wall. Among them was a picture of George Bush on the Abraham Lincoln, declaring "Mission Accomplished."

My father introduced me to politics when I was 13, and got me into the Republican Party. I went door-to-door for Barry Goldwater in 1964 at the age of 13. He really introduced me to politics. But we used to have these battles in my middle teenage years to the point where, one time, he actually threw me out of the house over an argument over the Vietnam War. But I learned from him how to have a disagreement without being disagreeable. My father was very good at that. My style on the radio is very much like my father's style with me. I really honor that.


BuzzFlash: What do you like about having a national audience? What do you enjoy the most about progressive radio and your role in it?


Thom Hartmann: Louise and I have started seven major ventures in the 35-plus years that we've been married, ranging from a community for abused kids, to an advertising agency, to a travel business, to a hospital in Africa. The question that we've always asked ourselves every time we started something new is three-fold. Number one, is this going to have a positive impact on the world? Are we going to be leaving behind those footprints in the sands of time that Longfellow wrote about? Number two, can we have a hell of a lot of fun doing it? And number three, can we make a living at it? If those three answers are yes, in that order, then we go for it. And radio does those three things. I feel like I'm changing the world every day in a positive way.


BuzzFlash: How do you choose a topic or theme for a day for a given program?


Thom Hartmann: It involves a certain amount of synthesis and collaboration. David and Louise, who are the producers, and I will get together and look at the pitches that have been made to us, typically from conservatives. They want to come on and present their side. Occasionally there will be a liberal one, but usually I can present the liberal point of view with regard to the news fairly well myself.

[MAGI]

#6
Thom Hartmann/Buzzflash:
We'll look over the news and the issues that are happening, and try to come up with three themes for each one of the three hours of the show. Once we have the guest or the major news story that's going to anchor the beginning of that hour, we all get onto the Internet, and start doing the research that will allow people to get that forehead slap, where they go, wow, I never knew that. Typically we do about six to eight hours of show prep for a three-hour show. Although, arguably, every minute I'm awake, I'm doing show prep.


Sometimes it starts with: hey, here's a news story. Wow -- what's the meaning of that? How can we take that to the next level? How can we chunk that up or chunk that down and use it as a vehicle to illuminate a larger issue? Other times it'll be, hey, this guy just wrote a book about such-and-such. How can we tie that into today's news? It always has to be timely. Every topic has to have a news hook associated with it.


BuzzFlash: How do you keep the topic lively within the format of a three-hour program? How do you keep people listening?


Thom Hartmann: As long as I really care about the topic, and I'm really excited about it, and I'm real interested in it, if I do my job right, that's contagious. And that's the kind of thing that shows up in ratings. If you can, number one, make sure that you talk about topics that you're passionate about, and number two, that your passion is communicated in a way that other people catch it, then you have a radio show that will continue year after year after year. When I hear people interviewing somebody just because they have a new book out, or just because they happen to be in the news, and you can almost hear them yawning over through the radio, then you know you've got a problem. I try to avoid that.


BuzzFlash: You're an extremely well-read, Renaissance man. It's hard for anyone to refute you on American history. And you're fascinating to listen to. How do you keep that interest? In another person's hands, it may turn into something very didactic, and people quickly turn off. You somehow make it sort of intriguing to the listener to continue hanging on and hearing more.


Thom Hartmann: That's because I love history. My father wanted to be a history professor, and his academic career got interrupted by my being born. But that passion for history of his, and my mother's as well, is something that I caught at an early age. I's the water I swim in, you know?


BuzzFlash: On your program, you will invite people with contrarian views, particularly one person comes to mind who you have on with some regularity, who represents a rather extreme anti-global warming position.


Thom Hartmann: Marc Morano. He's going to be on the program tomorrow.


BuzzFlash: As I say, you always deal with this in a very civil fashion. Marc Morano seems to respect your perspective. You respect his. But you certainly clash on the subject.


Thom Hartmann: I start with the assumption that the person I'm debating wants the same thing I do at the end of the day, a better country and a better life. Where we differ is on how we're going to get there. Only very, very rarely do I doubt that's the case.

[MAGI]

#7
Thom Hartmann/Buzzflash:
Secondly, the reason I do it is that everybody has a Marc Morano in their family, or in their circle of acquaintances, or in their workplace. The arguments that are put forth by the conservatives on my program are the arguments that progressives encounter constantly out there in the world.

So it's not so much that I'm beating this guy up on your behalf. It's rather that he and I are having a discussion so that the extremes of the issue and the depth of the issue can be illuminated, so that for every one of his talking points, or every dimension of his perspective, I can provide the alternative dimension or the alternative talking point. My listeners then have a better tool kit for interacting with the conservatives in their lives, in a way that allows them to have that kind of debate.

At the end of the day, you still work in the cubicle next to the guy, or he's still your brother-in-law, or in my case, your Dad. You still love each other or respect each other, or can get along, and go out and have a beer afterwards. I think we need that in America.

That's what Jon Stewart was pointing out -- politics as gladiator sport, which is how it was done on Crossfire -- my team, your team, shouting each other down. It's how it's done on Fox News. I think it's destructive. I don't think it advances the issues. I don't think it gives people any deeper insight into the issues, or a better understanding. It teaches people how to fight and argue, but not how to understand.

On my program, I'm doing something that's qualitatively different. I don't know that there's a word for it. Maybe "debate" is appropriate, although the word debate has come to mean slap-down politics. And that's not what I do.


BuzzFlash: Things are so polarized, and we plead guilty on BuzzFlash of being part of that. It's almost that both sides see there's no reason to have any sort of discussion, because there's no chance of finding common ground.


Thom Hartmann: It's really rare that I have a guest who comes on, and after we're done, I've changed their mind -- although it has happened. Occasionally, a guest will teach me something. Most of this stuff comes out of the fact that conservatives and liberals have a fundamentally different world view. They have a different understanding of the nature and role of humans in the world relative to each other and to the planet. There is a fundamental difference in these two world views. Once you understand that, then all these different positions on the issues start making sense.

You need to understand the larger frame, the conservative versus liberal world view. That's where I try to take people. That's where I frankly try to take my conservative guests.

I will say in a conversation with a conservative,that you want government to have less of a role, because you believe the government controlled by a large number of individuals has the potential to be fundamentally very evil, because humans are essentially evil at their core. Whereas, corporations are amoral. Their only morality is profit. And because they're amoral or morally neutral, they're superior to humans.

But I believe that I want government to play a larger role in things like a national health care program, if it's a truly responsive government, a truly democratic and representative government. That's because I believe that the people are honest and fundamentally good and will make appropriate decisions. If they make wrong decisions, they will correct them. That's the liberal world view.

[MAGI]

#8.
Thom Hartmann's interview with Buzzflash:The conservative's world view was that of Thomas Hobbes and John Adams. Mine was that of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. Those two contrasting world views inform the issues. And that's why people typically don't change their mind on the issue. My goal is to help my listeners understand how those world views inform the debate, so they can have the discussion about the issues in a way that helps bring about a national dialogue and discussion, rather than just a national food fight.


BuzzFlash: Let's look at the difference between radio and television. If you look at the Sunday morning news programs, as an example, there's the visual element. You're looking for visual cues from people - how they react facially to a question. In radio, you're just hearing a voice. Most people don't know what you look like, although if they go to Thomhartmann.com, they can see. But when they're listening to you, they don't necessarily have a visual image of you. Radio is just so different than television, because there's no visual cues. You aren't watching someone squirm. You aren't watching someone be arrogant. And you're not watching Bill O'Reilly get red in the face as he tells someone to shut up, which is sort of more theatrical in a way, because it's got the visual element. What do you find are the differences between these two media?


Thom Hartmann: Television is a cooler medium. And I realize some of what I'm going to say contradicts conventional wisdom, -- but television is a cooler medium. Television typically is watching people over there have a life. It's like looking through somebody's living room window. It's kind of voyeuristic. Or maybe looking out of your own living room window at the world. But it's an over-there thing.

Radio is the most intimate of all mediums. It's even more intimate, in my opinion, than the printed word. It is right here in your ear. It's a phone call. Radio is me talking to you. And when I'm doing radio, I'm thinking not of two or three million people listening. I'm thinking of one person listening. I'm talking to one person. And the demands of a medium that is a performance medium like television are very different than the demands of a communication medium, which is radio - an intimate communication medium.

There are some people who are masters of television and have even been able to turn it into a relatively intimate medium, like Keith Obermann, for example, who I have just incredible respect for as a professional in television. And there are people in radio who are able to establish that rapport with their listeners and be very, very effective communicators. On the liberal side we havesome real icons like Randy Rhodes, for example. On the conservative side, there are some really very brilliant and competent communicators as well -- Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, for example. I strongly disagree with their politics, but they are very good at the medium.

I have always been in a world of radio. I'm very auditory -- never really been interested in doing television.


BuzzFlash: There's always discussion about whether progressive radio is going to collapse or thrive. Where do you fall in on that spectrum?


Thom Hartmann: I think progressive talk radio has just begun to find an audience. Consider it took Rush Limbaugh about three years before anybody really in the industry took his show seriously, and saw it as something that was good enough that it was worth imitating. Progressive talk radio has only been in major markets in a really significant way for about two years, or, arguably, three years. We're pretty much at that point where conservative talk radio was when Rush was just starting to catch his stride, and some of the imitators or additions to the genre, should we say, started coming along. So I'm honestly seeing the progressive talk radio as just begun.

[MAGI]

#9
Thom Hartmann interviewed by Buzzflash:
Easy read with comments:
:thumbup:

http://buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/062


Now I'd just put one caveat on that. Michael Savage, whom you and I would call conservative talk radio, would not characterize himself as conservative talk radio. He would just say he's doing the Michael Savage show.


BuzzFlash: You're saying Michael Savage doesn't identify himself necessarily on the political spectrum. He's a brilliant identity, basically?


Thom Hartmann: Right. In fact, if you look in the trade publications at the ads for all the different shows that you or I would call conservative talk radio - you know, Laura Ingraham's show, or Michael Savage - they never use the word "conservative." Probably the only programs that are branded as conservative are those that come out of Fox News - you know, Hannity and O'Reilly. And Limbaugh essentially invented the brand.

Increasingly, conservative talk radio is not calling itself conservative. I don't think it's just because conservativism is coming into disrepute. I mean, Michael Savage is trashing George Bush almost every day. I think it's that talk radio hosts are finding their own stride and their own niche in their own areas of passion. They're going for that, and building a brand that is independent of a political label.

I think that's the next step for progressive talk radio. You're going to see talent breaking out into the larger mainstream of talk radio, and not be called progressive or liberal talk radio, but simply be called good talk radio that engages people. The host may have a progressive or a liberal perspective on many, most or all issues. But I think that there's something to be said for our being ready, frankly, to go beyond just the label of liberal. Frankly -- and this is a point that I think is really important -- when you do the surveys of what most Americans want on the major issues of our day, what you find is that those positions that are characterized by the mainstream media as liberal or even extreme liberal are the positions that the majority of Americans want. So you could argue that we are the mainstream. And I have no problem making that argument. In fact, I - for the first four years of my program, I called it "uncommon sense from the radical middle." It still says that on the top of my home page, I think, for my show. And I still have a whole website devoted to that - "uncommon sense from the radical middle." I'm taking positions that most Americans hold. And damn it, we're getting radicalized. I have a certain level of discomfort with all these labels even.


Anyway, as far as progressive talk radio goes, I think it's got a long, long way to go, and it's going there fast.


BuzzFlash: We hope people do become fans of yours, and that they'll be turning on the radio for your program. They go where to find out how they can listen to you?


Thom Hartmann: Thomhartmann.com, or AirAmerica.com


BuzzFlash: Thank you very much.

* * *

BuzzFlash Interview conducted by Mark Karlin.

Resources:

Thomhartmann.com

Thom Hartmann on Air America

Thom Hartmann on BuzzFlash

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW


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An easier read with comments:
http://buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/062