Barry Farber Calls for Electing ‘Solutionists’

In a tongue-in-cheek commentary, one of the earliest talk radio legends slammed ideological politics and called for electing “solutionists.”

Barry Farber in 1977 New York Mayor’s race (Credit: Library of Congress)

From WND:

After that magic moment, I changed my “registration” from “right-winger.” I’m now a “solutionist.” We did more, accomplished more and hated each other less when the nation cared less about who’s left and who’s right than about how to dig a Panama Canal after the French had failed. Some problems have difficult, or maybe no, solutions at all. But others are finger-snappingly simple, effective and eminently do-able!

Farber was a pioneer in conservative talk radio, was a mayoral candidate in New York and debated the Soviets in the 1980s.

To learn more about Farber’s amazing radio read Chapter 4 of The Right Frequency.

Talk Radio Pioneer Marks Another Mileston

This week, radio legend Barry Farber celebrated 30 years of his education group on The Language Club.

Barry Farber in 1977 New York Mayor’s race (Credit: Library of Congress)

Farber was interviewed for The Right Frequency and is featured in Chapter 4 “Game Changers.” He spoke about his knowledge of 26 language with great modesty:

Farber remains a longtime staple in the New York market and a national voice. He is widely reported to know 26 languages. But the North Carolina native who kept a slight southern accent even he reached big city radio, is quite modest about his knowledge of languages.

“When I entered the Army, I took tests in 14 languages and I qualified as an interpreter and that’s how I spent my time in the Army, translating,” Farber said in an interview for this book. “I am a student of as many as 26 languages. Some I know very, very well. Some I know only greetings, and some I can simultaneous translation in. But it would be wrong to give the impression that I’m fluent in 26 languages. I’ve done broadcast and speeches. I’ve done speeches in Hungarian, Norwegian, Spanish, and I participated in Spanish broadcast and in French, but not extensively.”

For more information about Barry Farber read The Right Frequency

.

Radio Icon Bob Grant’s Most Memorable Moment

Bob Grant, the one-time king of the airwaves in New York, died on Jan. 1, 2014. Grant was interviewed in The Right Frequency, where he stated his most memorable moment came not out of New York, but in California.

(The following is an excerpt from The Right Frequency.)

Before Bob Grant became a real celebrity out of New York, the producer of his Los Angeles program on KABC got a call from public relations firm that wanted to book Ronald Reagan as a guest.

“My producer, a nice young fellow from Inglewood, N.J. as a matter of fact, he said, ‘Bob doesn’t do show business stuff. We’re dealing mostly with politics and current events,’” Grant recalled.

The PR guy asserted, “Maybe you don’t know, but Ronald Reagan is not going to talk about his latest movie. He doesn’t make moves any more. He’s running for governor.’ When my producer told me I said get him, by all means. Get Ronald Reagan. I was already a fan of Reagan. I had heard several of his speeches or read them.”

“So Reagan was booked and it turned out to be his first radio interview as a gubernatorial candidate. I kept him for two hours. He was only supposed to be on for one,” Grant said.

Grant said Reagan, seeking his first political office, fumbled on more than a few questions, but Grant, being a fan, covered for him.

“We even had a woman call from Pasadena and say ‘You two ought to change places.’ She wanted to vote for Governor [Edmund G.] Brown,” Grant said. “She didn’t like the fact that I was helping Ronald Reagan. When she said, ‘You two guys ought to change places,’ Ronald Reagan, such a wonderful human being, says, ‘You know, you might have a good point there.’ That in retrospect has turned out to be my most memorable interview.”

That is saying something for a man who has been on the radio for six decades.
More than two decades later, another California radio announcer would travel to New York to be on the same station as Grant.

When an upstart Rush Limbaugh left Sacramento to come to WABC in New York, the excitement of the move was soon blunted when seemingly none of his callers wanted to talk about what Rush was talking about.

“I wasn’t just going to do a national show. I had to do a local show for two hours a day on WABC as well, because they weren’t going to carry the national show at first,” Limbaugh explained. “And, folks, I can’t tell you how dispirited I got the first month.
Here I am doing my show, and I’m doing my thing, and every phone call I got wanted to talk about what Bob Grant had said the day before. I’m on from ten a.m. to noon, and I’m sitting there saying, ‘Are you people not listening to me?’”

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

Top 10 Again! Right Frequency Climbs Amazon List

The Right Frequency on Friday hit the #6 spot on Amazon’s History & Criticism category.

The book was also #25 in the overall radio category.

This makes four consecutive months that The Right Frequency has been on an Amazon bestseller list.

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

 

 

One Year After Release, The Right Frequency a Bestselling Radio Book

One year after its release, The Right Frequency stands strong on Amazon.

The Right Frequency, released in August 2012, reached the Top 20 over the past week on Amazon’s Radio History & Criticism category for Kindle books. This book reached the top 10 on Friday, Aug. 30. The Right Frequency also returned to the bestseller list in Amazon’s Radio category.

The Right Frequency paperback edition also returned to the bestseller list for Amazon’s History & Criticism category.

The book, that chronicles the history of talk radio from the days of Walter Winchell through Rush Limbaugh, has been an Amazon bestseller for four consecutive months.

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

Boston Globe post on National Radio Day

The Right Frequency was featured on The Boston Globe’s website in a posting about National Radio Day, Aug. 20.

Of the day, the article said, “[O]ne trend that appears obvious is the shift to talk radio away from music radio due to the demand for music being satisfied by iPods, YouTube and a variety of electronic factors.”

“And when it comes to talk radio, one of the very few experts on the subject, Fred Lucas, author of ‘The Right Frequency,’ a history of the remarkable influence talk radio has had on Conservative politics in the United States, is well aware of the trend.”

“Radio is becoming more widely used than ever before,” Lucas said. “There are more portals through radio, and I mean talk radio, flows today than ever before. When one considers the portable electronic devices in use today, the numbers are staggering. Talk radio influence appears to be never ending.”

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

Radio Surived and Thrives Through Media Revolutions

Silobreaker, a publication on technology, carried a recent posting on The Right Frequency.

The article said, “The book explains how radio not only survived but thrived despite various media revolutions over the past 90s years. It also details milestones in the radio era such as the Payola Scandal of the early 1960s and the end of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in the late 1980s, both of which contributed in its own way to the proliferation of talk radio.”

The piece was posted just days before National Radio Day on Tuesday, Aug. 20.

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency. 

Sean Hannity in Trouble with Fox and Cumulus?

This past two weeks produced a whirlwind of rumors about Sean Hannity’s future, with both the Fox News Channel and Cumulus radio networks.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that both Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would lose 40 stations if they are dropped by Cumulus. This week, more reports surfaced that Megyn Kelly would replace Hannity in the coveted 9 p.m. time slot on Fox News.

Hannity, the number two talk radio host in the nation, had a tough road to be where he is. In The Right Frequency he describes himself as “born to argue.”

Below is an excerpt on Hannity’s career from The Right Frequency.
Though he sort of came up on it by accident, Sean Hannity
managed to make a good living from what he’s just naturally done
his whole life. “I was born to argue,” he once said. “I don’t know
why. I mean, from arguing with my teachers and, on occasions, my
parents. I think I’ve mastered the art of argument at a fairly young
age.”704 He has used that gift to soar to the number two spot on both
talk radio and cable news, and has done what both Limbaugh and
Beck could not do, maintain a huge following on radio along with a
longstanding TV presence.
The Iran Contra affair may have been the low point for the otherwise
successful Reagan presidency, but it gave Hannity the opportunity
to do what he loved with an audience to listen.
When allegations that the Reagan administration had sold arms
to Iran in exchange for hostages, and used proceeds from the sales
to illegally fund the Contras in Latin America, the Senate—controlled
by Democrats after the 1986 midterms—leapt to investigate
the matter. The main witness prompting the must-see TV moment
at the time was Lt. Col. Oliver North. Hannity heard the senators
haranguing North, and routinely called into conservative talk shows
to give his two cents.
Hannity was never a fan of handouts. In the late 1980s, he was a
contractor, painting houses, because he did not want to rely on his
parents to pay for his tuition at New York University. He dropped
out and headed west to California, continuing to work in construction
to save enough money.
“I was a contractor. I was working my way in and out of college.
Didn’t want my parents to help pay for college. So, I’m, I’m running
out of money all the time. So, that’s how I was making my living and,
I’d be 40 feet up in the air on radios, calling into talk shows,”
Hannity, who grew up on Long Island and continues to live there
today, recalled in an ABC News interview.
“The things I had to say began attracting more feedback,
spurring more people to call, until sometimes I was getting bigger
response than the host,” Hannity wrote. “Before long it dawned on
me that I ought to be on the other side of a microphone as a host
rather than a caller.”
“People say, ’I want to talk to that guy that just says what he just
said, because I loved what Ollie was doing’” Hannity recalled.707
His course in life was set.
“I’d grown up listening to Bob Grant, Barry Gray, John Gambling
and Barry Farber,” Hannity wrote. “That experience taught me early
on that a passionate argument, well made, could make a difference,
even if the person was speaking as a private citizen.
He volunteered his commentary at radio station in KCSB-FM,
the station for the University of California- Santa Barbara. It was
not a good fit, as the station did not like his politics after he
expressed opposition to homosexuality at a liberal university.
Reportedly, a lesbian caller to his program said she had a baby after
being artificially inseminated and Hannity responded he felt sorry
for her child. The university fired him, or at least banned him from
volunteering, for supposedly “discriminating against gays and lesbians.”
Interestingly enough, the ACLU Foundation of Southern
California came to Hannity’s defense. The university backed down
and told Hannity he can have his airtime, but at this juncture, he
didn’t want it.
“I was too conservative, the higher ups said, and they didn’t like
the comments one guest made on the show. So much for free speech
on a college campus!” Hannity wrote. “The station was dominated
by leftwing public affairs programs, including a gay and lesbian perspective
show, a Planned Parenthood show, and multiple shows that
accused Reagan and Bush of being drug runners and drug pushers.
The leftwing management had a zero tolerance policy for conservative
points of view and I was promptly fired.”
The northeasterner left the West Coast to go south. A talk radio
show opened up at WVNN Huntsville, Alabama in 1989 for $19,000
per year that he took, “because they gave me a microphone.” He
occasionally did a local TV debate show with liberal David Pearson,
whom Hannity described as a “fierce defender of the left.”
“When I got there, the first thing I discovered was that my New
York accent—which I never even noticed—didn’t go down easy in
the south.” But he said, “I tried to connect with callers. I read everything
that I could get my hands on, scouring newspapers and magazines.”
The program took off and was a spring board to Atlanta’s
WGST-AM, a top 10 market. Hannity moved to WGST in 1992—
as talk radio was on the verge of becoming a powerful political force
—to replace the legendary Neil Boortz, who had jumped to WSBAM.
However, because of a no compete clause in Boortz’s contract,
Boortz could not go on the air for several months on WSB. Hannity
used this time to build an audience. And it worked due in part to
Boortz’s hiatus.
Hannity became the top rated show in Atlanta, and often interviewed
Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich, the House Minority
Whip. Then, the ultimate opportunity came when he got to be the
guest host for the Rush Limbaugh Show on a few occasion, giving
him his first national exposure. After that, he was brought on as a
conservative pundit for CNN’s Talk Back Live. Roger Ailes, then
head of CNBC, liked him so much he brought him on for a few
shows on that network. He also got other TV appearances on
popular 90s talk shows hosted by Phil Donohue, Sally Jesse Raphael
and Geraldo Rivera.
When Ailes took the job running the new Fox News Chanel in
1996, he hired Hannity in September of that year to do a debate
show with New York liberal radio show host Alan Colmes. It was to
be the Fox version of Cross Fire, the long time Left-Right debate
show on CNN.

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

Does New Fairness Doctrine Threaten Internet Freedom?

The Internet is the next battleground over the Fairness Doctrine, a recent Naples Daily News article warns.

“In more recent years, such individuals see things like conservative talk radio as the bane of our democracy, and that such enterprises need to, in the least, be reined in. Many such folk do speak of the good old days of the Fairness Doctrine, a piece of legislation which is in reality the antithesis of free speech. Not surprisingly, many of these individuals hail from a liberal/progressive camp,” the article says.

It continues, “No one is left to solely rely on radio and television, nor do they necessarily have to contend with programming schedules. There’s a universe of information on the Web that can be accessed on demand by computers, tablets, and smart phones. You can get the news that the mainstream media offers, and you can also go to alternative sites. Many libraries across the country are going digital, and you can download books and other materials from their websites for free.”

“It’s out there. All a person has to do is take the time and effort to look for it,” the article further states. “Unfortunately the future of the Web is uncertain. Just as some have been clamoring for the return of the Fairness Doctrine, there have been demands that speech on the Web be regulated and restricted.”

The piece speaks to the potential threats of the Fairness Doctrine. The Lyndon Johnson administration engaged in a “challenge and harass” strategy by using the power of the government to silence radio critics of the administration. These abuses are detailed in detailed in Chapter 5 of The Right Frequency,

Below is an excerpt from The Right Frequency on the Fairness Doctrine.

***

The story of how Democrats used Nixonian tactics before Nixon was ever elected president began in the fall of 1963 when President John F. Kennedy wanted to get the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union approved by the U.S. Senate. The treaty had bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition, thus was
expected to be a close vote. A big concern was criticism of the treaty by the Revs. McIntire and Hargis.
Kenneth O’Donnell, the appointment secretary for President Kennedy sought the advice of former New York Times reporter Wayne Phillips on forcing stations to provide equal time. A behind the scenes effort prompted the front group Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which targeted talk radio. The Rudder & Finn public relations firm, which coincidently is the same PR firm the DNC used, did publicity for the committee. Each time McIntire or Hargis took a swing at the treaty, the committee sent letters to the stations that carried their programs. States where these show aired that had senators on the fence were specifically targeted. A special program was taped specifically for responding in each of those stations. When the Senate ratified the treaty by a surprising 80-19 vote on September 24, 1963, the administration saw how the Fairness Doctrine can be used for high priority legislation.
In January 1964, after Johnson had taken office, Phillips began monitoring conservative radio. “It soon became apparent to me that the extreme right-wing broadcasting was exceptionally heavy on particular stations and in particular areas of the country, and that the content of these broadcasts was irrationally hostile to the president and his programs.” Phillips eventually came on board in a more formal role as the Director of News and Information for the DNC. He hired Wesley McCune, head of Group Research Inc., which did research for the DNC, to help him with full time listening duties.
The DNC prepared a kit that it delivered to voters and activist explaining, “how to demand time under the Fairness Doctrine.”
Phillips also brought Fred J. Cook, a friend from his journalism days, into the fold to write a piece for The Nation magazine lashing out against conservative talk radio. Cook had just finished a book “Barry Goldwater: Extremist on the Right.”
The talk radio piece in The Nation ran in the May 25, 1964 issue with the headline, “Hate Clubs of the Air.” It said, “The hate clubs of the air are spewing out a minimum of 6,600 broadcasts a week, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations—nearly one out of every five in the nation in a blitz that saturates everyone one of the fifty states with the exception of Maine.”399
According to Friendly’s book, “Because of the close association of James Row with President Johnson and also because of [DNC Chairman] John Bailey’s standing as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, there is little doubt that this contrived scheme had White House approval.”
Bill Ruder, an Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Johnson administration recalled, “Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenge would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.”
The DNC mailed out thousands of copies of Cook’s Nation article to Democratic state and local parties and Democratic officials. The DNC also mailed the article to radio stations, with a letter from DNC counsel Dan Brightman warning that if Democrats are attacked, demands will be made for equal time. When McIntire criticized Brightman for sending the letter, the DNC demanded and got free airtime to respond on about 600 stations. Then, when Dan Smoot assailed LBJ during the Democratic National Convention, the DNC got free airtime to respond on 30 stations, though others declined.
Democrats believed their strategy was successful and decided to accelerate things, setting up another front group called the National Council for Civic Responsibility that took out full page newspaper ads that said, “$10 million is spent on weekly radio and television broadcasts in all 50 states by extremists groups.” Picked to head the group was Arthur Larson, a liberal Republican who had served in the Eisenhower administration. Larson insisted at the National
Press Club, “The council’s formation had nothing to do with the presidential campaign or with the right-wing views of Republican candidate Senator Barry Goldwater.” Though, he later came clean that leading the organization was not his proudest moment. “The whole thing was not my idea, but let’s face it, we decided to use the Fairness Doctrine to harass the extreme right. In light of Watergate it was wrong. We felt the ends justified the means. They never do.”
He also added, “As soon as I found out the Democrats were putting money into it, I wanted out.”

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.

Talk Radio Hosts Move From Behind Mic to Ballot

In Minnesota, talk radio is moving to the forefront of politics.

Former conservative talk radio host turned state Sen. Dave Thompson is running for governor of Minnesota, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The paper reports

“Thompson, who grew up in greater Minnesota but now lives in suburban Lakeville, built a following as a conservative talk radio show host. Thompson acknowledged the shows could provide opponents campaign fodder, but he said they won’t find a trove of edgy comments.

“I really said the same stuff on talk radio that I say now. There’s a reason for that: I believe it,” Thompson told the newspaper. “I wasn’t a shock guy. I tried to call it like I saw it.”

He isn’t the first talk radio host to move beyond just commenting on politics, as explained in The Right Frequency, an Amazon best seller.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a former U.S. House member, was also a talk radio show host. Conservative talker Martha Zoller, who wrote the forward for The Right Frequency, was a candidate for U.S. Congress in Georgia in 2012. Liberal radio host Al Franken was elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 2008. In 1977, conservative talk show host Barry Farber was the Conservative Party nominee for Mayor of New York.

The book also talks about other talk radio hosts who strongly consider political campaigns, such as Bob Grant and Dennis Prager.

Click here to order a copy of The Right Frequency.