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| Michael Smerconish |
According to The Washington Post, “The Michael Smerconish
Program” is on SiriusXM’s “Politics of the United States ” Channel 124, a
“non-partisan” setup that Smerconish insists is unlike conventional terrestrial
radio. “I can tell you who won’t be leading into me” on the SiriusXM schedule,
he says: “Limbaugh, Beck or Hannity.”
Those fellows, says Smerconish, are “amazing entertainers,”
masters of the radio medium — not to mention dividers of the United States of America . “The
problem for the country, I think, is that too many [people] cannot
differentiate between entertainment and substance. The country is paying a
price for this brand of polarized media. … Too many politicians are taking
their cues from people with microphones,” he says.
Strange words from a guy who makes a living speaking into a
microphone. Smerconish burst into radio in Philadelphia in the early ’90s. On Friday, he
did his last show on Philadelphia
station WPHT 1210 AM, which was syndicated into 80 markets around the country.
He says he’s moving to SiriusXM to provide a species of “nonideological”
programming, as distinct from regular old radio’s penchant for “contributing to
incivility and gridlock.”
The medium, he says, has become “too old, too white, too
male and too angry, just like the Republican Party. Why should I continue to
sell vegan burgers at McDonald’s?”
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