I’m sitting here after dinner, a glass of wine at my side, in a home with automatic gates, servants, and wonderful hospitality, somewhere in Englewood, Colorado. There’s a chocolate dish with Tahitian vanilla ice cream on the dessert menu shortly.
It’s shirtsleeve weather (at least for a Saskatchewanian). You can be jealous.
Listened to Hugh Hewitt on radio for the first time and it reminded me of how far behind the curve Canadian conservative talk radio is in this aspect. I’ve been reading him pretty regularly for a year or so, and it reminded me of one of the frustrations of being a Canadian “amateur” blogger. Why isn’t Canadian talk radio moving into the world of blogging? Ignorance? Station policy? Laziness?
On his Monday show Rawlco radio’s John Gormley mentioned – I believe for the first time – the Eason Jordan affair. That’s all well and good – he certainly beat the news department on the “scoop” – but when a medium as immediate as talk radio is two weeks behind the curve, it’s pretty stale stuff.
On the other side of the fence, bloggers here dig, work to get reader tips due exposure, and swarm as best we can on stories we believe deserve attention. But there’s little chance for momentum to build in a country where television and print media is a virtual house organ of the Liberal party and talk radio has not yet produced a Rush Limbaugh. If they continue to plod along in their insular little regional am wave world, they’re pretty damned unlikely to, either.
The blogosphere in Canada will continue to lag behind the US in our ability to coalesce around a story and move it forward, so long as Canadian talk radio plods along in a 90’s mindset about the internet as little more than a convenient, but largely unreliable source for out-of-the mainstream show fodder.
C’mon you guys. Get on board. Get your blogs up – and by blogs, I mean the real deal, with trackbacks and a blogroll. See Hugh Hewitt. Hell. he has an email address – ask Hugh Hewitt.
Here’s another suggestion – local talk radio has weekly features with regular guests – contests, movie reviews, dvd release shows, “mornings with the mayor” etc. Why not try this – a weekly round-up of the stories perculating in the Canadian political blogosphere?
Stop playing catch up. Get in front of a story for a change.
Hope you are enjoying your stay!
It shouldn’t ‘just’ be radio shows referring to blogs. I’m only speaking for myself but I never, ever, listen to the radio. Don’t even have one. A problem with me; I can’t both listen-and-work at the same time.
BUT – all the MSM, radio and newspapers, have to open up to blogs in Canada. I’d like the journalists to publicize blogs and blogging. Refer to them in their newspaper etc articles. Refer and refer and refer. Print the URLs. Get out the word.
Yes, the MSM, dominated by the Liberal control of our media (CBC, CRTC) censors the people, but, the internet enables a genuine democracy.
Canada, despite Liberal rhetoric, is in a serious state of democratic decay. It is NOT functioning as a democracy – those every-few-years elections are irrelevant because they are acts of pure propaganda and brainwashing. And – just think – our official gov’t was elected with only 34% of the vote. 66% of the population voted against this government. But – they are the gov’t. Now- doesn’t that suggest something undemocratic?
And, once elected, the doors-to-the-people slam shut. The gov’t is no longer interested. It can ignore journalists; it can ignore news reports; it can, as Martin just did, blame HIS ignorance on the listener, and say that they didn’t ‘really hear’ him say that it was a good thing that Syria had its military occupying Lebanon; instead..we idiot listeners ‘misinterpreted’ him. What then – did he really say such that we misinterpreted him?
And when that didn’t wash too well, he went into that his statement was really one of ‘irony’. Oh boy – now we are into Martin as Novelist, attempting to analyze the world by metaphor, irony and….stupidity?
Blogs are vital; they are important; they are the ultimate tool of a modern democratic people. We in Canada, living within what is essentially a non-democratic fiefdom of a small mandarin class in Ottawa – have to take back control of the country.
Publicize blogs; then, link blogs with each other. And – get into the hard topics. Analyze, comment and ….in one year…it will be different.
The power of blogs in the US is phenomenal- and their nature, as heavily researched, highly aware, based on expertise – merits high respect.
Excuse the OT, but what happened to your website earlier today? I was being redirected to one of those scammy looking placeholder links.
Kate,
One quick idea here… It would take me all of five minutes to setup a ‘tip service’ mailing list. Here’s how it would work… Anyone would be able to email a tip a general mailbox that the mailing list owners have access to. The list owners would then post the tip to the mailing list, which other bloggers are subscribed to. This way one tip could find it’s way to over a hundred blogs within a couple of hours of arriving.
We don’t want people e-mailing the list directly because of spam concerns, and we want a bit of filtering so that people aren’t continually getting blasted with garbage.
I’ve got the ability to setup mailing lists at polspy.ca and don’t mind donating bandwidth to this. I would recommend that we use a gmail address for the tip collector, with people *you* trust having access to it. These volunteers can then post to the mailing list.
Anyhow, something coordinated like this would help speed up the swarming, if you know what I mean.
Great post. You express a shared sentiment among frustrated conservatives looking for a serious venue to debate issues. Even Norman Spector could find common ground with you on this.
Hey Kate,
Your description of your Colorado ‘hotel’ kind of sounds like the ‘snazzy resort’ Sharky is staying at right now. He had a Tahitian Cheese dog cookie after supper. He’s having such a good time, he may not care when you guys get home. (Sounds like you’re all camping out at the Forbes’ place or something–gosh I had no idea). Must be nice! I’m jealous. Sharky’s not. Get some points!! (Ok, have a good time, too).
Hi Kate. Your point about the “real deal” in terms of blogs has been taken to heart here at rightthinkingpeople. We are working on a blogroll and trackbacks (admit I had to look up what a trackback was). Anyway, just wanted to let you know that the people are listening.
Don’t go back ! There is nothing to go back to but stubble jumping socialists. They really don’t deserve or appreciate your talents. I for one will never move back if possible.They’re just not right in the head.
3 days and no updates from Kate….I’m in withdrawal mode 🙁
Ya think the liberals got her?
Listen in on Ottawa at http://www.cfra.com 9am-12 and 8pm-midnight EST
… or check here:
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/page?p=provs&xyz=53
Sorry to be offline so long. My days are starting at 5 am and ending around 10pm. No time to blog, much less keep up with events.
Kate,
I’m reading Hugh Hewitt’s book, If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat and it’s a great read and I recommend all your readers to pick up a copy.
If you truly want to be saddened about how far behind the conservative movement in Canada is pick up a copy of America’s Right Turn by Richard Viguerie the father of political direct mail and see that we are at least 25 years away from the kind of power conservatives have in the US. The book has a great history of how conservatives used alternative media from the pamphleteers of pre-revolutionary America to direct mail, talk radio, cable news, allthe way to the blogosphere it’s another great read.
Love the site and keep up the good work.
Brent Colbert
brentcolbert.com/blog
Canada may be lagging, and blogs are going to help a lot with that, but I agree with Kate that Canadian talk radio needs work. I think Canadians HAVE to find a Rush because it was primarily Rush who turned the tide for American Conservatism. It’s incredibly moving to read the dittohead’s thank you’s and tributes to him — how helpless they felt until he came along to speak for them, educate them, and galvanize them into movement.
Now we need to find someone of our own so we can ditto the dittoheads.
Just one more small point. I’ve often wondered how Rush himself would feel about helping us out…I can’t see him being our political talk show guy, but maybe he’d be interested, from a business point of view, in expanding his EIB network into Canada the way Fox is coming in. I think there’s a real hungry market here.
To ditto the Dittoheads
This is a subject that is dear to my heart and one that I will be harping on at every opportunity. …
Rush Pillhead?!
Yeah, just what Canadian political discourse needs, a bigoted, mendacious, drug addled demagogue. No thanks…