UPDATED: Air Enron - Air Scamerica
Michelle Malkin is on the case.
If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at CNN.
Of course, if it were a conservative radio network it might: (1) have an audience and (2) ad revenue.
Next time Al Franken smirks ask him “Al — Air America’s funding racket. What do you know and when did you know it?”
UPDATE: More on the MSM’s “scandal selectivity.” (Hat tip RCP– Ed Morrissey in The Daily Standard.)
This deserves an extensive quote:
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA is often inconsistent in covering stories. They gave us wall-to-wall coverage when George W. Bush’s National Guard service came under scrutiny, but suddenly made themselves scarce when over two hundred Vietnam veterans pointed out hole after hole in John Kerry’s service narrative. When Rush Limbaugh ran into legal problems surrounding his addiction to painkillers, we heard breathless updates on subpoenas and court orders, but when Eason Jordan revealed his predilection to slandering the U.S. military, again the press pulled a disappearing act.
Michael LeBoeuf once commented that the elements of the perfect fiction would involve religion, royalty, sex, and mystery–and then boiled it down to one sentence: “My God,” said the Queen, “I’m pregnant. I wonder who did it?” Is there a grand-unified theory of media interest and if so, what elements need to come together to make the perfect journalistic storm?
We often hear journalists claim that their mission consists of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. One crucial element must therefore put powerful people under a spotlight. Some journalists say that they fight for the little guy, the downtrodden, which means that the story must include victims. Still others like investigative work, digging through arcane paperwork and doubletalk to reveal misdeeds that otherwise would never come to light, which means that a crime or at least unethical conduct would help draw interest. And finally, big money always attracts a crowd and helps audiences relate to the disgraceful actions unveiled by the reporter.
Thus, the perfect journalistic storm would arise when powerful people victimize the poor and downtrodden, breaking laws or at least ethical constructs, by taking money meant for their benefit. That sort of story will get anyone’s attention. All it takes is one reporter to tell the story, and the rest of the media will jump all over it. Right?
Ed’s answer? Read the whole thing. (Hint: the legacy media’s failure to cover Air America’s scam of the poor is self-proving.)
UPDATE 2: Here are quotes from the original NY Daily News article that set the story rolling, plus a quote from The Bronx News — all on Michelle’s site, and they’ve been there for several days. One sentence summary of the allegations (commenters are invited to do better, subject to the comment rules for this site): An Air America biggie ripped off a publicly-funded kids’ poverty program and put the money in Air America. Just click on Michelle’s own list of posts, and start following the story. Here’s a link to Brian Maloney’s ur-post, with a string of updates. Just keep scrolling. Movie title for this “ignored outrage”: The Silence Of The Usual Suspects.
UPDATE 3: Comment 16 offers this three sentence-long description: “Here’s the summary: AAR’s former CEO allegedly arranged a loan to AAR. The (NYC?) money was given to a charity in the Bronx, Gloria Wise. AAR says it was planning to give the money back, then they halted that when NYC’s Dep’t of Investigation started their investigation….As far as their ratings go, while a few smaller markets (Long Island, etc.) are up, the NYC ratings at WLIB are lower than when they were a Caribbean station…”
Thanks for the comment. I think this first sentence would be a bit more accurate : AAR’s former CEO allegedly arranged a loan to AAR from a publicly-funded charity.
Why am I not surprised?
Comment by HaroldHutchison — 8/2/2005 @ 3:51 pm
[…] much more can Air America take (besides the bad ratings, mediocre performance, and lack of ad revenue?) Check out Michelle Malkin’s blog for an excellent wrap-up of events and persuasive analysis […]
Pingback by Rightank » Blog Archive » Bilk Radio — 8/2/2005 @ 7:44 pm
Of course, if Air America was a conservative radio network it would have revenue/profit and wouldn’t need to borrow funds from foundations to survive. Anyone seen Rush’s house lately?
Comment by Rob McNickle — 8/2/2005 @ 10:31 pm
Air America the Serial Drama As principled as the West Wing, as exciting as Con Air, and as up-to-the minute as Over There, Air America the Serial will thrill you and amaze you. We have the storyboards, and we’re publishing the first episode HERE today.
Trackback by Instapunk.com — 8/3/2005 @ 11:32 am
Air America Scandal? Although Instapundit has been all over this issue, they have deferred to Austin Bay due to lack of public interest. Austin Bay in turn defers to Michelle Maulkin. What none of the above are doing is citing real media. You
Trackback by Moonage Political Webdream — 8/3/2005 @ 12:13 pm
[…] ng it, and most of the ones on the right take the oh-so-helpful stance of this post at the Austin Bay Blog. If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt fu […]
Pingback by Weblog — 8/3/2005 @ 12:19 pm
Since I quoted this post extensively today, I thought the least I could do was pass along some of my thoughts: “Okay, the expiration date has passed on posts that make the “if this was one of our guys, the mainstream press would be all over the story.” It’s tired coming from the Right, and I’m not any more amused when it’s coming from the Left. We might be in a brave new world of journalism, but there are a lot of people out there using old school arguements. This isn’t 2001 folks, keep it moving. As for comparisons between conservative talk radio and Air America, it’s apples and oranges for a lot of reasons. I’m not a huge fan of AA. I don’t think the hosts are all that entertaining, and the shrill whining tends to give me a large headache. The network doesn’t do well in every market, but it is doing solid numbers in many of them. And the fact that listeners will spend time supporting an inferior product is an indication of the desire to hear something other than conservative talk radio. Hell, if Al Franken gets an audience, imagine what you could do with someone who is actually compelling. But I can tell you why conservatives love to take potshots at Air America. It’s because they’re scared. Using Air America as the standard bearer of liberal talk radio is roughly similiar to using the Chicago Cubs as the example of success in post-season playoff games. It’s easy to choose an inferior product, and use that as a way to illustrate how success by anyone would be impossible. The last thing conservatives want are literate, likeable, entertaining centrist liberals on the radio. Who wants listeners suddenly realizing their favorite conservatives might actually be wrong some of the time? I know what it takes to do good talk radio. So I have an idea of just about how long the Hugh Hewitt’s of the world would last if they had a strong, articulate competitor slapping them like they were a pinata everytime they were wrong on a subject.
Comment by Rick Ellis — 8/3/2005 @ 12:21 pm
If only the boy scouts could have gotten this treatment.
Comment by edward irvin — 8/3/2005 @ 12:29 pm
Austin, your Daily Standard link appears to go to Tigerhawk.
Comment by Pamela — 8/3/2005 @ 1:17 pm
Anyone seen Rush’s ratings lately? (spiraling down, down, down)
Comment by cynic — 8/3/2005 @ 1:49 pm
Your link to the Daily Standard is actually a link to Tigerhawk’s story on the recent murder of a journalist in Iraq.
Comment by Michael — 8/3/2005 @ 2:10 pm
There is another element to your ‘perfect storm’ story: hypocracy. Thus the MSM’s dwelling on the priest sex abuse scandal, for instance. The juxtaposition of the liberal radio network, concerned for the little guy, against corporate America Air America taking from children is such an example of hypocracy.
Comment by Joni Leone — 8/3/2005 @ 2:17 pm
Air America story still roundly ignored No longer a “fake” story, but the mainstream press is still not picking up on it. I asked my journalist pal what he thought and he said, “It’s a non-story because no one listens to Air America and who didn’t expect Al Fr…
Trackback by The Anchoress — 8/3/2005 @ 3:43 pm
I’ve looked on three websites now. Can somebody tell me in one paragraph what exactly happened, besides MSM is ignoring it? The guy who used to run Air America was also involved in a social program, and siphoned funds, and gave it to Air America? Or something like that. Actually, Liberalism doesn’t lend itself well to the political talk-show format. Most bloviating windbags aren’t Liberals, and when Liberal’s try to be, they come across as being ingenuous. But I applaud Air America for trying. It is obvious that the thoughtful counterpoint to the oft-repeated, mind numbing utterances of Rush Limbaugh and his like is long overdue. I’m just not sure that emulating him is the way to go. Anyway, I’m sure its a really big scandal. I’ll be following it on pins and needles. Well, maybe not.
Comment by Ghost Dansing — 8/3/2005 @ 4:03 pm
Please don’t demean my Cubbies by comparing them to Air America! The horror.
Comment by mesablue — 8/3/2005 @ 4:14 pm
Here’s the summary: AAR’s former CEO allegedly arranged a loan to AAR. The (NYC?) money was given to a charity in the Bronx, Gloria Wise. AAR says it was planning to give the money back, then they halted that when NYC’s Dep’t of Investigation started their investigation. As far as their ratings go, while a few smaller markets (Long Island, etc.) are up, the NYC ratings at WLIB are lower than when they were a Caribbean station. Feel free to add updates to this story to my news ticker.
Comment by BoreAmerica — 8/3/2005 @ 4:50 pm
Defending the indefensible? I’ve been joking about the Air America scandal — in a post and in an Air America parody. Certainly, it’s beyond dispute that things don’t look good for Air America, either. While I agree that if this were a right-wing…
Trackback by Classical Values — 8/3/2005 @ 5:45 pm
NYT coverage of the Air America scandal Had this been a scandal involving Rush Limbaugh, the media would have been all over it. Instead, they are engaged in business as usual - which means the blogosphere will have to do their jobs for them.
Trackback by Sister Toldjah — 8/3/2005 @ 11:07 pm
I loved Captain Ed’s Weekly Standard article about the MSM’s non-coverage of the Air America scandal, especially the way he set it up as a mysteriously unreported “perfect storm”. There’s an even bigger non-story, which has been around for many years. An industry’s major product has been shown to cause a very significant increase in a certain kind of cancer, resulting in, by conservative estimates, thousands of additional cancer deaths a year. The biological mechanism by which the product causes the cancer is well-understood. Many peer-reviewed studies have been done on this, in many countries, and most of them find this link, while the ones that fail to find it are either methodologically flawed or can be seen to actually support the link when their data is analyzed more carefully. Lobbying groups for the industry have attempted to suppress publication of some of this research, and have succeeded in some cases. Sounds like another perfect storm, especially when you add the fact that the users of the product, and the victims of the cancer, are disproportionately minorities and women. The MSM has not only ignored the story, but has actively killed it, by, in the few cases where they could not avoid writing about it, uncritically regurgitating the industry’s line that the few studies that failed to find a link disprove the link. This is not how this kind of science works. You get one guess.
Comment by Joseph Shipman — 8/4/2005 @ 1:40 am
conservatives whine so much…i don’t get it…conservatives whine endlessly like somehow they have it so tough…
Comment by robert — 8/5/2005 @ 8:03 pm
At last I’ve found a great station 1190 where at night I can hear the truth and the frustration coming from Mike Malloy. His sincerity and his frustration comes across loud and clear, and my golly, those who call in are so great too. I agree with everything he says, and I’d like to add that if there was no religion in the world, there’d be no wars.
Comment by Helen — 8/5/2005 @ 8:26 pm
Air America is a fair balance to the right wing radio I hear on a daily bases. I don’t give a dam if they are funded by some right wing millionare. Their line up isn’t all about politics or hate and name calling, like some of the right wing AM radio shows and you all know who I’m talking about. Interviews are from both sides, so you get a balance of views. When we finally got it in up state NY, I was so happy!!!!
Comment by Robbie — 8/6/2005 @ 4:21 am
It pleases my heart to no end to finally hear Conservatives defend minority children. And the crusade is lead by the sweet, even-tempered Michelle Malkin. Give me a break! These people see only a chance (and a slim one at that) of getting Karl Rove a breather or taking minds off the American carnage going on in Iraq. You Conservatives, and especially Miss Malkin, should be paying more attention to the Ohio families that have been decimated during the past week instead of coming up with some slight of hand B.S. about the LAST group of people on earth in your priority sphere. Your policies, including this expensive war, have taken more money from these minority, inter-city children than Air America could even dream about. The suburban majority children, along with the rural children, along with the metropolitan children are all suffering because of short-sighted demogoguery. Your “colonialism” has mortgaged the future of all our children. If Air America is guilty,let them repay the money. But I want to see you Conservatives “repay” the 1500-plus families whose loved one have paid with their lives for your folly. “Oh, the little black children…..” Please! Give me a break!
Comment by greyfox — 8/7/2005 @ 8:14 am