Talk Show Culture

IV. Criticism Builds: The Pros and Cons

FCC Chairman Dean Burch and Senator John Pastore attempted in vain in the 1970s to attack the rise in sexually explicit programming as "smut." But they were overwhelmed by the growing power of the broadcasters, along with the public's desire to talk about forbidden topics.

After the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed by U.S. anti-government fanatics in 1995, President Clinton denounced "the purveyors of hatred and division," referring to extremist radio talk shows. In an April 24, 1995, speech to the American Association of Community Colleges in Minneapolis, he said such talk shows "spread hate. They leave the impression, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."

Along with the violent hate speech, explicit sex talk troubled the critics. With more than 20 nationally syndicated television talk programs on the air by the fall of 1995, moderate senator Joseph Lieberman joined those on the religious right to decry many of these programs as "pornographic" and degrading to U.S. culture. In an editorial in Electronic Media, he noted that during a February 1995 "sweeps" week, Rolanda showcased porn stars reuniting with their first loves, Jenny Jones had men and their girlfriends who wanted to be porn stars, and Richard Bey set up a competition between housewives and strippers. Lieberman complained that the constant confrontations, emotional violence, and sexual messages children could see regularly on talk shows taught them perverse lessons about adult behavior and problem solving.

Not only were an estimated 8.3 million children under the age of 17 watching some television in the United States, according to Nielsen Media Research in the 1994-1995 season, but, he said, "the preponderance of perversion on daytime talk shows is affecting our entire society.., pushing the envelope of civility and morality in a way that drags the rest of the culture down with it."

Defenders argued that their programs enhanced the diversity and honesty of U.S. culture. Host Geraldo Rivera said that talk shows have "been ahead of the cultural curve since Phil Donahue shocked millions with his pioneering programs on lesbians, atheists, feminism, gender confusion and male exotic dancers" in the mid-1960s. Rivera 's on-air brawl with skinheads on his program "did more to focus negative attention on the epidemic of hate in our country than all the Anti Defamation League bulletins ever issued," he said.

Sally Jessy Raphael also argued that her programs were providing a positive education to young people. "These shows are like morality plays. The audience always tells the bad people off--the young girls who are getting pregnant, the men who are abusing their wives, the women cheating on their husbands." Other hosts said they were offering help, rather than exploiting their humiliated guests. Paramount Television Group's Montel Williams Show boasted on its Web site in September 1999 that through the show's "after-care program" it "successfully arranges for guests to attend psychological treatment, motivational camps, drug and alcohol rehabilitation and treatment for eating disorders." But critics were not buying that excuse. One outraged citizen, Elayne Rapping, concluded in an online rant in 2001 about talk shows that the real harm was "that they co-opt and constrain real political change. They are all talk and no action."

In countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Germany, governments went farther, forcing some programming to late-night slots and fining them for degrading content. Germany's Vera am Mittag was fined 200,000 marks (about $122,000) for inviting a diaper fetishist to share his experiences with the audience and Sonia was fined for airing a slugfest between a mother and her 11-year-old daughter.

V. Reform

A. The Oprah Winfrey Show

As many talk shows became more manipulative and bizarre, veteran host Oprah Winfrey was one who decided she had had enough. She deliberately revamped her top-rated program in the 1990s to offer a more wholesome product, even though it meant that her show lost some viewers. "I am in disbelief about things that are happening on television talk shows. How low can we get?" she said in a February 1999 interview with the London Sunday Times. She described her reluctance to continue "interviewing more dysfunctional people" on her 200 hourly programs each year. As part of her positive civic effort, Winfrey began hosting a regular on-air book club segment to promote literacy. It proved so popular with her estimated 7 million viewers that it created instant bestsellers for many authors featured on the show.

B. Talk Radio Changes Tone after World Trade Center Terrorist Attacks

Talk radio offered people a chance to talk through their fears after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In the days following the hijackings and devastating attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington, radio stations reported that talk show calls were up by 50% or more.

G. Gordon Liddy immediately urged that the United States attack at least five nations that he said were harboring terrorists. Callers also vented their anger and frustration. Host Howard Stern did not challenge one anti-Muslim caller's proposal to shoot everyone with "a towel on their head" in Patterson, New Jersey. But many of the vitriolic talk show hosts cooled their rhetoric. Across the nation, there was less frivolity and willingness to pander to hate speech, according to Michael Harrison, publisher of a talk radio trade magazine, Talkers. Police in Seattle, worried that anti-Muslim attacks might he incited by talk shows, found that a precautionary statement they issued denouncing such talk show rants seemed to have a positive impact.

When televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell tried to blame liberals, feminists, and abortion rights advocates for inviting such terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush, who had relied on their support during his campaign, denounced their statements. Some hosts who previously would have played into the nation's paranoia and anger seemed chastened when confronted by such genuinely shocking events. Sex shock jock Tom Leykis invited callers sympathetic to the radical Muslims to explain their views. Even Rush Limbaugh, who made a career out of slandering liberals, chided a caller who denounced the "Hollywood liberals" who staged the fundraising telethon to help the victims of the September 11 attacks. Liberals had been emailing him that they wanted to put partisanship aside at this time of crisis, Limbaugh said, concluding, "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt."