It's not just Limbaugh and Hannity

[Joanne98]

Summary: Beyond the echelon of widely known conservative radio hosts with national audiences lies a vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have become key components of an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods. Like their better-known counterparts, these syndicated and regional radio hosts have played active roles this election season in promoting falsehoods and smears in an all-out effort to foment hate and distrust among their listeners for President-elect Barack Obama. While the hosts vary in the degree of vitriol they spew and in their ratio of rebuttable falsehoods to unbridled smears, Media Matters for America and Colorado Media Matters have identified common themes that many, if not all, have promoted over the past year.
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While there has been much discussion about the role that nationally syndicated radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have played in perpetuating smears and falsehoods about progressive candidates and ideals, little has been said about the vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have served as an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods. This year, Media Matters for America has greatly expanded its monitoring of regional radio and has produced numerous items documenting falsehoods, smears, and baseless attacks on progressives in that time. While the hosts vary in the degree of vitriol they spew and in their ratio of rebuttable falsehoods to unbridled smears, Media Matters and Colorado Media Matters have identified common themes that many, if not all, promote.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released a report, which garnered considerable media attention, concluding that Sen. John McCain received much more "negative" coverage than President-elect Barack Obama during the campaign. But in purporting to compare the media's coverage of the two candidates, PEJ did not consider talk radio, saying: "Talk radio stories ... were not included in this campaign study of tone." But, beyond arguable flaws in PEJ's methodology, no study of the "tone" in the media's coverage of this presidential campaign is complete without inclusion of conservative talk radio. Several of the radio hosts monitored by Media Matters (their shows are described in detail below), as well as their guests, engaged in an all-out effort to foment hate and suspicion of Obama among their listeners, promoting the most baseless and farfetched of smears and advancing falsehoods -- including about Obama's religion and background -- that have taken hold among a substantial percentage of the electorate.

Media Matters has compiled some of the more noteworthy examples of conservative radio hosts' and their guests' attacks on Obama and, more generally, attacks against others in the context of the 2008 election.

General themes in 2008 election

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200811060005?f=h_top

[baldguy]

1. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be a big step toward reducing these abuses.

[sharesunited]

2. Salem Radio Network is just horrible. Sandy Rios on WYLL in Chicago is a dedicated slanderer

who claims to be a Christian.

There is just no way that her daily 2-hour program slinging mud at Barack Obama for the past six months should be allowed under the FCC Rules.

I don't even need equal time. Just give me three minutes every quarter hour to refute the crap this woman spews!