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Article: Gurus of gab: talk radio stars are changing America.
- Article from:
- Policy Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Hoover Institution Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In an increasingly bureaucratic, mobile, and even unfriendly America, talk radio functions as the last neighborhood in town. We communicate, kitchen-table style, with some of all types of Americans and they with us. We are the lightning rods for anger and sadness and views ranging from the enlightened to the moronic. We find our audiences often as youths and grow with them into adulthood; I think of 10-year-old Seth who called me in 1976 when I began on the air, and who periodically has checked in from college, law school, and now from his home with his kids in the background.
At one level, talk radio entertains. Its hosts, like its audiences, run the full gamut ...