Announced on Straight Talk Radio’s website today: I would SO call in today and join the fun but alas I have work.
Call In to Straight Talk Radio and Be Heard Worldwide! Call Toll-Free 1-800-832-3623 Today, Monday Dec. 5th, Between 12:00 Noon – 5:00 pm EST (*Time Has Been Extended for STR’s West Coast Listeners who Don’t Hear the Broadcast Until Late in the Afternoon. Studio Lines Will Be Open Only During That Time.) Our Producers Will Screen the Calls and if Selected, You’ll be on Wednesday’s Broadcast. Stephen and Irene Look Forward to Speaking with You!
Update 12/07/05: Today’s broadcast ended up consisting of Stephen’s Christmas CD. According to Stephen they experienced some “technical difficulties” with the call-in show which he said will now air Monday the 12th.
People should call in and ask him why he is determined to use old, refuted and potentially harmful data. Ask him if he finds it moral to lie to listeners.
Recently in his show he had two scenarios of a hate crime one was on old women at an ATM the other was a gay couples at an ATM. Ask him why he twisted the facts about hate crimes when neither of those scenarios would have been a hate crime. He told listeners that beating up the old women for her money would have been a mugging, but the same crime for the gay couple would have been a hate crime. For Stephen that was an outright lie. Both were muggings because the motive in both was the money. Ask him why he twisted the facts.
Ask him to identify ONE of his former boyfriends by name who he claims to have buried because of AIDS.
Call and get some information about his history that we can verify.
Don’t expect too much. Producers at talk shows screen calls–not every caller gets on the air. They screen calls for a number of purposes. One is to have people who agree with the host get on the air bolster the host among their target audience (“Oh, Rush you’re the greatest, mega-dittoes”) and only blithering idiots who disagree with the host on the air to make their side look foolish.
If you think I am kidding, I can assure you, I am not.
Some talk shows on public radio do not operate like that, but commercial talk radio certainly does.
I worked in radio for 9 years. I know how to easily get through any screener.
Sound confident, say what the host wants to hear, get on the air, change the subject.
It’s pretty simple.
Yes, names of the dear departed. And places where he and his string of lovers (or is it only one?) suppossedly lived.
Scott at December 5, 2005 02:51 PM
Scott, most people who call into have not worked talk radio have not worked in radio. I’m a lawyer, and I could do the same “bait and switch” (change the subject) bit that you describe. But you can be sure that after the “switch” is made, the call will be quickly terminated. Or the call will be adjusted to make the caller sound like an idiot. I’ve heard it happen.
If a talk show host wants to allow a motormouth opponent to run his mouth, and talk over him, they will reduce the amplitude of the caller, and allow the host to talk over him. I’ve heard that, too. All you can hear of the motormouth opponent is a low level buzz–but you can hear that he or she is yelling and screaming–and it makes the opponent sound like an idiot.
There are a number of strategies that the hosts and producers use to make their opponents sound like idiots.
I listen to enough talk radio, both local and national, to agree with what raj and other people have said. Talk radio is primarily an entertainment medium, so making opposition callers look like raving loons is, quite frankly, wildly enjoyable for the target audience of any show. “More heat than light,” and all that.
The best approach when calling into any talk show is to be calm, rational and honest about your position and what you wish to discuss. If you’re allowed on the air, focus on one or two points only, and present your argument in a pithy and logical way. If the screener on Bennett’s show doesn’t allow you on the air, even though you have conducted yourself in a polite and respectful manner–then Bennett is clearly afraid of rational, reasoned debate, and you wouldn’t have accomplished much on the air with him, anyway. Also, confronting Steven on issues regarding specifics of his supposedly gay life (which at this point I’m not convinced is truthful) would be seen as attacking the host, and you’d never get on the air that way, either, so there’s no point in attempting that. A website or blog dedicated solely to examining his testimony would be much more effective.
Christopher, you are being too kind. Commercial radio and TV in the US is a medium to sell advertising. The customers are not the listeners. To the contrary, the customers are the advertisers. That was made clear to me 20 years ago in the Wall Street Journal, itself.
Hey raj, I totally agree with you. However, to keep the Great Unwashed™ tuned in so that they can be pummelled with those very advertising spots, you need to keep them entertained. Two or three raving loons per hour is enough to keep them from turning the dial to something else. This is true for any kind of talk radio, whether it focuses on politics or sports–the latter of which is the fastest growing format in AM radio.
Christopher said:
A website or blog dedicated solely to examining his testimony would be much more effective.
That’s not a bad idea at all.
There is a positive side to call screening of course. Without it, the quality of the show would suffer greatly. I used to listen to Larry King on the radio perhaps 15 years ago. He took calls as they came in with no intervention. Sometimes it would be someone’s kid, or someone who was not at all prepared to articulate an idea (i.e. scared to speak), or for any number of reasons was just wasting national air time while he had to cut them off and go to the next caller. And naturally there were the pranks by those who understood there was no screening.
Great Unwashed
That phrase has always seemed a bit elitist to me, like something Marie Antoinette would have said of her subjects 😉
David
Wait a minute, they took calls on Monday and will broadcast Wednesday? Forget it, there won’t be anything outside the party line there at all. That thing will be edited more than a High School term paper.
David
ReasonAble at December 6, 2005 05:49 AM
Wait a minute, they took calls on Monday and will broadcast Wednesday?
I’m completely unfamiliar with the Randy Thomas program, but maybe they were following the CarTalk model. CarTalk is a popular public radio program. People who want to get on the air call into the producers, describing the subject matter of their questions or comments. The producers screen the calls based on their presumed entertainment value. The program is recorded on Wednesdays, and, during the recording session, the callers are called back to interact with the hosts of the program. The program is subsequently edited down for release on Saturday. It isn’t unheard of, particularly for a weekly program.
Forget it, there won’t be anything outside the party line there at all.
Of course not. That obviously isn’t the intention of this exercise. The intention is to preach to the choir and shake them down for money.
Going up a bit
I used to listen to Larry King on the radio perhaps 15 years ago. He took calls as they came in with no intervention.
I never listened to Larry King on the radio, but I doubt very seriously that he took all the calls as they came in with no intervention. About the only talk shows on which that might occur are low-rated talk shows with few callers. They pretty much have to take whatever calls that they can get.
And
Great Unwashed
That phrase has always seemed a bit elitist to me
Just consider it a turn of phrase. I don’t use it, either, but I don’t use “trailer park trash,” either. Nor do I use terms like “trust fund babies” that denigrate people who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families.
Sorry, that should have referenced Bennett’s program. There are too many of these ex-gay people with media outlets.
I have long experience with call in talk radio. I have been an in studio guest with several of them.
Most recently, Jesse Peterson, local black minister and constant scold (he won’t hire blacks with black sounding names, thinks they’re stupid).
His market a broadcast area wasn’t local to Los Angeles, but VA, SC, NC, GA…and Las Vegas (Sin City), the most likely places where they will be agreed with.
Or as in the case of LV, where they think they’ll do the most good preaching against sinful behavior.
I apologize if my use of the phrase “Great Unwashed” offended anyone. I was just using cynical humor in describing the talk radio audience, as seen from the perspective of an advertiser. Maybe I should have used Flyover States™ instead. 🙂
Oh, and when I was a kid, I called into Larry King’s radio show on my birthday and actually got on the air to ask Martin Landau a question. (I was a big Space: 1999 fan. Yes, I am a sci-fi dork.) From what I remember, though, there was a call screener.
Christopher said:
Oh, and when I was a kid, I called into Larry King’s radio show on my birthday and actually got on the air to ask Martin Landau a question. (I was a big Space: 1999 fan. Yes, I am a sci-fi dork.) From what I remember, though, there was a call screener.
I’ll admit to enjoying Space 1999 🙂 IIRC, Larry King wanted it that way (no screener), but I don’t have any proof either way other than my memory. It’s safe to say the vast majority of such shows do use one.
David
ok, I liked the idea of having a bog to dispute Straight Talk Radio’s bogus and hollow claims….
http://www.joebrummer.com/WordPress
Feel free to add your refutes to his silly unfounded claims….
I was a big Space: 1999 fan. Yes, I am a sci-fi dork
I was and still am a SciFi dork. When I was a teenager in the 1960s I read Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and many others–they were books of course. I read the original serialization of Dune in a SciFi mag in 1965.
I’ve never heard of Space: 1999, but I have heard of the actor Martin Landau. My favorite SciFi TV program is the NBC mini-series of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicals.
Some of the SciFi channel’s programs can be interesting (I like Stargate SG1, for example) but their unceasing lengthy commercial interuptions is annoying. We prefer to rent the DVDs when they come out.
Forgive me for drifting OT here, but to answer your question, Space: 1999 was the first series that Martin Landau and then-wife Barbara Bain did after they left Mission: Impossible. It was a British series that was the most expensive TV show produced at that time, and the guys who did the SFX for Star Wars cut their teeth on that show. The set design and costumes are still spectacular to this day, and many of the set design elements (certain chairs, lamps and other industrial objects) are now studied now in art journals.
It only ran for two seasons, but the entire series is available on DVD. The first season is the only one worth watching. Although many of the scripts suffer from some bad science, the 2001-esque atmosphere (and occasional gory moments in some episodes) is still very effective. In the second season, the series sold out to American demands to dumb down the show, so it became pretty much a “monster of the week” series that was borderline kiddie TV. Embarrassing. The only saving grace was the addition of the Maya character, a shapeshifter, who was played by the wonderful actress Catherine Schell, who co-starred in The Return of the Pink Panther.
And now back to our regularly scheduled takedown of Stephen Bennett…
OKAY, What happen. Nobody called? Today was supposed to be the call in show, but that has been changed to a music show featuring music from none other than stephen……
Looking at his web board for Straight Talk Radio, their are few posters raving about the show. I have a feeling he is fibbing about his many listeners. SO I bet no one called in to the call in show!
Does anyone else suspect that XGW might make up the larger portion of his audience?
David
haha David – could be. I’m one of those loyal XGW Straight Talk listeners. A low point in the show came on a recent episode when Irene reviewed ‘Brokeback Mountain” which of course chronicles the life of two gay married men. She was aghast that someone might conclude from watching the movie that married ex-gay men (like Stephen) are frauds – not really hetero guys at all. I wish I could quote her comments here -though it was a tiny bit funny it was mostly very sad. I’m sure any former wives of formerly ex-gay men would have quite a commentary on her naivete. I know the former wife of this formerly ex-gay man sure would.