Credit Where Credit is Due

Vindication is imminent for the giddy inhabitants of Blogville this week and what a sweet victory it is and will continue to be, even for fledgling newbies such as me. Afterall, we're here because of our passion for information, news, politics and media affairs. Our years of critical frustration watching the antics of the elite media are finally apexing in their virtual implosion. Can you say 'poetic justice?' O 'they're not going to disappear any time soon; they are just going to become less relevant and less influential. How could this have happened to the once powerful and monopolistic media elites?

Talk radio!

I'm a youthful '50 something' guy who has been listening to talk radio since I was kid and 40 years ago there weren't many conservative talk show hosts. Larry King was the biggest thing in national talk radio 30 years ago. Jim Bohanan and Michael Jackson (not that one) were out there and I always enjoyed them but they didn't typify my personal political views. Still, they were an alternative source of information apart from the mainstream.

With the Reagan Revolution came a new wave of local conservative radio talkers. Atlanta had Neal Boortz (still there) and Barry Young (who did a stint in Dallas in the 80's and is now in Phoenix). Dallas had Kevin McCarthy, (who is still on the air and has become a Dallas radio icon). In the late 80's Dallas radio welcomed David Gold, 'the voice of reason' (who has a weekend show in San Francisco and a daily show in Dallas). It was David Gold who set the stage, in Dallas, anyway, for Rush Limbaugh.

My point is this: long before Rush Limbaugh came on the national scene in 1988, conservative talk radio was well established across the country and when Rush did come on, he became an unprecidented hit with like thinkers...conservatives who had never had a national spokesman who actually thought like they did. Not only did Rush challenge the liberal left with reasoned arguments, he actually got in their face and laughed at their policies . How DARE he!!!

Rush's record breaking success spawned more national shows; Liddy, Boortz, Beck, Hewitt, Ingraham, Gallagher, Savage, Prager, Reagan, Hannity and others, plus the countless local conservatives who have flourished.

It was talk radio, during these past 20 years or so, that set the stage for the efficacy of the internet. Talk radio was one of the first venues on a national scale where likeminds in a steadily growing movement could come together and discuss the free exchange of ideas.

Then came the internet and patriarch Drudge and matriarch, Lucianne, and they begat and begat, setting the pace, doing yeoman's duty.

Then came Fox News.

The 'alternative media' is now the New Media and the once invincible, monopolistic 'Mainstream Media' has become the Old Media. Things in the media will never be the same as they once were. Thanks to Talk Radio.