R.I. Governor Defends Talk Radio Ban

Sez it may be temporary

With his talk-radio avoidance policy making the national news and rating the second-highest placed headline on the Drudge Report at one point on Wednesday, Governor Chafee is defending his decision, according to a story by Katherine Gregg and Tom Mooney at projo.com.

In an interview Wednesday, Chafee denied speculation that the policy had anything to do with the harsh criticism that some of the state’s conservative talk-show hosts had been flinging his way in the wake of his move to rescind his predecessor’s executive order on illegal immigration.

“We just want to focus on the job at hand, getting the economy rolling again, and we can’t be diverted with all the nonsense on talk radio,” he told a reporter at the state Emergency Management Agency headquarters after the latest briefing on the snowstorm.

Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor said the policy had been under discussion for some time. But it caught national attention after the shootings last week at a meet-the-constituents event at a shopping center in Arizona that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically injured. Some commentators suggested that the massacre was a symptom of the “climate of hate” stoked by conservative, right-wing radio programming.

Asked Wednesday if he personally believed that talk radio was corrosive to the political process to the extent that it thrives on divisiveness, Chafee said: “Perhaps, to an extent ... at least that is my opinion.”

At the very least, he said, “it’s more entertainment than journalism.”

But more basically, he said, it is time-consuming. If he or one of his department heads appears on the “John DePetro Show,” for example, they would feel obligated to give equal time to the Dan Yorke and Helen Glover shows and “you just get all caught up in it.”

But he also indicated that the policy first articulated by his spokesman on Monday, and then clarified on Tuesday, may not be permanent.

Read more here.