John Derbyshire, popular conservative writer at National Review, ruffled a few feathers a month or two ago, when he said that he didn’t like Conservative talk radio.  I can’t quote him exactly, but he said something to the effect that he’d like to see a middle-brow conservative talk radio.  Something a bit more like NPR, in essence.

Well.  I have taken to listening to NPR in the mornings because I have the following choices for radio on my way to work:  lousy current popular music channel, lousy 80’s music local channel (not that 80’s music is lousy, far from it, but they choose to play the LOUSIEST SONGS), boring local conservative talk radio, “Jesus is my boyfriend” contemporary Christian music, or NPR.

Only one of those stations is going to provide me with any REAL news.  And, unfortunately, it’s NOT the local conservative talk radio station.  So, as I drive to work, listening to NPR, I realize:  Conservatives could do this too, and do it better.

NPR has the following format (approximately) for its news programs:  a brief, 3 to 5 sentence off-the-wall storyline that they picked up from Drudge or Fark, followed by about 90 seconds of more general national news.  Then, they move on to a story, which will consist of 1-to-6-minutes of actual reporting;  contributors from all over the planet will be interviewed, send in their stories, whatever.  And you can definitely learn things from listening to NPR.
But, of course, the problem is, each and every person contributing to NPR’s programs is a liberal.  Each and every program host asking questions of the guests is a liberal.  Rare indeed is the day when a conservative is even a guest, and then they get asked tough questions (fair enough), and their responses are frequently edited to fit into the “remaining time.”

What would “Conservative NPR” look like?  It would have this same format, play Limbaugh and other nationally syndicated talk shows during the mid-day hours (when NPR is playing opera and classical concertos), and would provide other talk programs at night.  And during the drive-time hours, when NPR is doing their “All Things Considered” and “The World” or “MarketWatch” segments, the conservative NPR would do similar programs, with one twist:  Ask tough questions.  Dig for challenging answers.  Look past the simple, easy responses of a government flunky or a liberal college professor, and ask probing questions.

FoxNews tries hard, but their approach to “Fair And Balanced” is to put everyone, liberals, libertarians, and conservatives, on-screen at once and let them all shout at each other.  That doesn’t work, because conservatives, despite what liberals claim, tend to be more polite.  Liberals tend to be willing to lie, to repeat stupid sound-bites, and to shout over other people just in order to dominate the conversation.  People accuse Michael Savage of being rude to his callers, but I see much much worse from liberals on FoxNews at least once a week.

Instead of the FoxNews approach, take the NPR approach: ask the tough questions yourself.  Get a list of questions from conservative thinkers who are strong on the subject, and be prepared to challenge your liberal interlocutor on the issue.  Then, (because you KNOW that NPR programs aren’t live, right?) cut and paste with your ProTools or SoundForge and create a nicely packaged radio program that cuts out the incivility and the shouting and just gets across the conservative viewpoint and the fact that the liberal guest has no legitimate response to whatever you asked him (or her).

I’d love to see this take root.  Would it be tough?  Yes.  Would liberals decry it as being unfair to the guests and propaganda?  DUH.  Would it find support among conservatives?  You tell me.