An open letter to the financial backers of Air America.

I have noted with some interest the details of the ongoing money sink that is Air America. I suppose that I could lie and say that this gives me no enjoyment, but that would be quite dishonest of me: I am enjoying the sight immensely, mostly because I was skeptical about the notion from the start. Admittedly, none of you bothered to listen to me, given that I'm some guy on the Internet with a blog, but you do have to admit that I've turned out to have frittered away a lot less of your hard-earned money than you have, so possibly you should have taken the time to look me up.

But, strange as it may sound, I'm not suggesting that we spend our time together in bitter recriminations: I'm here to help you out. No, really. We can turn this thing around for you.

The basic problem that you financial folks are having is you're being, well, reactionary instead of progressive in your thinking. Political talk radio was a neat idea, to be sure - but it was neat because of circumstances, not because of its intrinsic value. This isn't Field of Dreams: if you build a liberal talk radio network, they won't automatically come. They apparently didn't. Better by far to work with an existing market.

Which leads me to, well, the blogosphere. Stop looking at the low number of readers for a moment and think. Low initial outlay, almost no support costs, no pesky FCC restrictions, no need to sell advertising space, potential to cash in on the trendiness associated with the Internet, 24/7 access... what's not to love? Admittedly, the audience is currently low - but audiences can be built up, and on the cheap, too.

For example: I understand that Al Franken gets about a million a year from his Air America gig. Good on him and I hope that he gets it without any problems. But let us pretend, instead, that you took that money and paid out 50 grand apiece to the following left-leaning bloggers (all from our blogroll and in more or less random order; no insult is intended for anybody not on the list):

Rivka, Respectful of Otters
Catsy, Slouching Donkey, Lying Elephant
Pandagon
Max Sawicky, MaxSpeak
Jeralyn Merritt, TalkLeft
Crooked Timber
Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Electrolite
Opus, Department of Louise
Jeanne D'Arc, Body and Soul
Brad DeLong
Norbizness
Harley, Tacitus
Oberon, North Georgia Dogma
Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Katherine R, Obsidian Wings
Edward_, Obsidian Wings
Randy Paul, Beautiful Horizons
Mac Thomason, War Liberal
sidereal, South of Real
Matt Weiner, Opiniatrety

That's twenty bloggers, all of whom are earnest enough to do this sort of thing essentially for free and good enough to not be too bad at it. Imagine what they'd do if they could actually treat this hobby as a job. Could a bunch of dedicated and pissed-off amateur pundits somehow manage to turn a underutilized communications medium into a powerful tool for a political ideology, complete with millions upon millions of users? Given that this is essentially what happened with right-wing talk radio, I'm guessing that the answer is yes. Besides, given that at the rate things are going Mr. Franken will probably be twiddling his thumbs for at least half of his salary period, it's very much an open question whether you'd be spending your money any less foolishly by giving it to bloggers. I can also personally attest that at least half of those folks deserve it more than a lot of the people you're currently paying.

Alternatively, you can ignore me completely and keep throwing cash at Air America and hope that it'll rebound, somehow. In that case, all I can say is: thanks for helping put more money into circulation, and hopefully you'll reassess your opinion at a later date.

For a given value of 'hopefully', of course.

Moe

(via Bainbridge)

Comments

[James Casey]

I think someone should build a separate liberal internet. Or, at least, have a large liberal enclave with quiet but persuasive sirens and understated yet striking neon signs assigned to hyperlinks to places like Fox News that boom out, "Warning! You are now leaving the Zone of Consensus!"

And access would be restricted to those who passed the secret entrance requirements, like a retina scan or sitting for fifteen minutes in front of footage of Bill Clinton, and people like Moe who are tolerated right-of-centrists would be allowed in but only blindfolded so they don't see how they passed inside, and would have to be accompanied at all times at the keyboard by Katherine or someone.

[Catsy]

I know that for 50k a year, I'd blog a hell of a lot more diligently than when the whim strikes me and I have time at work. :>

Personal self-interest aside, I can't say I disagree. Part of the problem with Air America, much as I like the idea, is that it conflates means with ends. The desired end, I think most of my ideological compatriots would agree, is to develop a self-sufficient, mass-media vehicle for informing and inspiring liberals and independents. The means, in this case, is /whatever achieves the ends/.

Blogs have many advantages, as you listed above. On the other hand, the big drawbacks to blogs are that they are, at this point, still too inside-baseball, and that they pose technological obstacles to listenership that radio does not. The gripping hand is that blogs are already evolving, on their own, into this kind of network, and I think that in the long run this kind of organic evolution will result in something far more lasting than fiat lux attempts at creating a new liberal medium out of thin air. Political candidates are now starting to get a glimpse of the power of the blogging community, and blogs are drawing more and more regular Americans into their readership by the day.

[carsick]

I don't know many radio shows or stations or tv networks for that matter that didn't have to build audience.
I would be surprised if their business plan presumed profit from the get-go. Maybe some investors presumed profit from the get-go but that's their fault.

[Anarch]

See, that's your problem, Moe. You're, like, thinking and stuff.

[Oberon]

The political-geek version of the XFL.

[Bill]

I agree with Moe that the internet is a far more hospitable market and medium than drive-time call-in radio.

But on that note, I think we should recognize that Air America supposedly is doing quite well in terms of web-streaming audio: something like 2 - 2.5 million people streaming per day.

This aspect seems worth keeping since, after all, lots of people like audio. (All reading and no audio-visual makes Jack a dull boy... perhaps a really smart boy, but a dull boy nonetheless.)

[Moe Lane]

"But on that note, I think we should recognize that Air America supposedly is doing quite well in terms of web-streaming audio: something like 2 - 2.5 million people streaming per day."

Assuming that's true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then Air America would be well suited to become Online America... OK, obviously not that name, but you know what I mean. Keep the programming, stop bothering with the broadcasting via radio and expand the living hell out of the website. Create a venue for the hottest names in blogdom!

Not that I expect this to happen.

Moe

PS: Folks, it's hard for me to reciprocally link to other blogs when I don't know that they've linked to us. Just saying, that's all. ;)

[Oberon]

Also, thanks for mentioning me. If anybody wants to be pay me to surf the web and blog, let me know. If I got a bonus for every beer I drank, that would also be nice.

[mc_masterchef]

The idea of funding an online network of liberal bloggers and/or other commentators is not a bad one, and I'd agree that there's a lot of potential for growth and more innovative use of money that Air America necessarily, but I'm skeptical that it could ever really rival talk radio, at least when it comes to numbers and markets. For all the growth in the medium, the fact is reading somebody's opinions online takes far more time and effort than just flicking on the radio and listening (which can be done at work, in the car, wherever), just as (for now) getting an internet connection is more expensive than an AM/FM radio, contributing to the upper-income-levels skew of blog demographics. While I'd expect the latter problem to improve over time as broadband and other services expand along with the associated infrastructure, the former seems to me to be the real thing to beat. In terms of reaching a broad listening audience, I don't think you can compete with that ease of radio, but in terms of energizing a select core of partisans more funding of blog-related and other internet initiatives is a good bet, and based on the amount of money the Kerry (and prior to him the Dean) campaign has succeeded in raking in this election cycle I wouldn't be surprised if we see more work in that direction in the future.

[Matt Weiner]

Aw shucks, Moe, it's an honor just to be nominated! I think the "Matt Weiner Analytic Philosophy Hour" would make a great radio show anyway.

But if the academic career doesn't work out, and someone does want to pay me $50K to blog, I could definitely find it within myself to cut down on the "Does S knows that P?" stuff.

Seriously, thanks for the plug!