Welcome to Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway.
Meet the Drobnys.
Back in 2002, venture capitalists Anita and Sheldon realized their vision of a liberal talk radio network by forming “AnShell Media” (get it?). They sold the company in 2003, and it was soon renamed “Air America Radio.” The contract obligated the Drobnys to sever all ties with the network. They were kept at arm’s length from then on, although they were allowed to provide some help in reorganizing the company when it ran into trouble. In October 2006, after Air America filed for Chapter 11, the Drobnys announced the founding of a new network, Nova M (named for Sheldon’s father’s Polish hometown, Nova Miasto). The network carries Mike Malloy and a number of other personalities. Its flagship station was founded in Phoenix (now there’s a metaphor for you!), a community where a previous Air America station had been converted to Christian radio. The station celebrated its first birthday this past month.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous diaries, Invisible Airwaves Crackle with Life and Who (Almost) Killed Progressive Talk Radio?, Boston’s one progressive talk radio outlet was abruptly switched off just before Christmas last year, part of a wave of cancellations across the country that began immediately after the 2006 election. Daily Kos member Robin Bergman didn’t take this lying down. She formed a Yahoo! listserv at three in the morning and posted some info on the blogosphere, including here at Daily Kos, and by the end of the day, fifty people were busy discussing what to do next. The first order of business was to circulate a petition. Whether or not listeners in Boston could, like a similar group in Madison, WI, convince Clear Channel to change its mind, the group wanted to have on record just how many devoted listeners the station would be losing. We held meetings and discussed strategy.
Meanwhile, Jeff Santos, who had been the only local talk show host on the station before it was flipped, had been aggressively investigating opportunities. He was persistent enough that the Drobnys agreed to hire him to help them set up a Nova M station in Boston and then host a daily show on the station. He informed the group of the Drobnys’ plans and we agreed to hold a “meet-and-greet” event when they came to town for a business trip.
So it was that about two hundred people signed up to come to Jimmy Tingle’s theater to meet Sheldon and Anita and fellow Nova M members Joe Trippi and John Zogby and to hear music by the group Jim’s Big Ego.
I’ve been to my share of rallies in the past three and a half years, but never to one that was headlined by two venture capitalists, a campaign manager, and a pollster. I ruminated on this unusual grouping as they spoke. It struck me that we’ve come to a point in this country where everything is on the rocks — our political system, our economic model, our investigative journalism — and those of us who are trying to save it are forced to reach either up or down. If the crisis makes for strange bedfellows, so be it.
Jeff introduced himself and also Robin, whose story of activism in the wee hours got a warm reception from the crowd. Jeff then brought on John Zogby. He had a nice sense of humor and an original perspective, which might surprise someone who might have expected that he could only speak in percentages. In addition to sitting on the Nova M board, he hosts a show called “Pulse of the Nation.” I never had paid much thought to pollsters before then, but it struck me that in fact they do play an important role. Someday our society will have to confront its cognitive dissonance, in which a media cartel can get us to believe that opposition to the war is a minority viewpoint. At that point, it will have to listen to those who actually have been taking the pulse of the nation.
Jimmy Tingle, the owner of the theater where the event was being held, spoke next. His theater features progressive comedy (including his own), so I was surprised by the serious note he struck. He spoke of community, and the way that he hoped that progressive talk would be kind rather than promote the hatred that we hear on conservative radio.
The next “JT”, Joe Trippi, was introduced. Of course, there was widespread applause when Jeff mentioned that he had been the campaign manager for Howard Dean. Trippi told the story of the long-ago days when he used to hang out on message boards for gamers and stock traders (another odd set of bedfellows, but hey, it was the old days, before the Internet offered niches for everyone). The group had grown to anticipate the pieces posted by one of their members. Then he disappeared, and it turned out that he had died of a heart attack at the age of 31. (At this point, Trippi almost broke down, and had to compose himself in order to finish.) Someone proposed collecting money to help out his family, and within a short time, hundreds of thousands of dollars had poured in. This episode convinced Trippi of the power of the Internet to bring about the connection that people were craving. He brought that insight to Howard Dean’s campaign. He echoed Jimmy Tingle’s belief that people also crave the community that progressive talk radio can create.
Sheldon Drobny spoke next. He told the crowd that he was tired of our losing elections due to the skewing of the media. He had taken things into his own hands in 2002 by talking to the most powerful Democrats in the country and getting the first progressive radio network in decades off the ground. He said he doesn’t want to tell people what they should hear; he wants to know what we want to hear. (That was very refreshing to a crowd upset with Air America’s cancellations of popular shows, most recently Sam Seder’s.)
Finally, it was Anita Drobny’s turn. She spoke of how Phoenix was a real community effort, with people calling each other to inform them of the station’s existence. She described the Nova M birthday party a few weeks ago as a “love-in” for listeners, hosts, and staff. I’m sure that was accurate, since I could imagine how members of our group (including myself) would go nuts to find themselves in the same room as Stephanie Miller, Mike Malloy, and Thom Hartmann. She said that the network had such great new people lined up for the network that it was killing her not to be able to tell us their names yet, but they would in a few weeks.
There was some Q&A, and then Jim’s Big Ego took the stage again as some filtered out of the theater while others lined up to talk to the Drobnys. Sheldon autographed my copy of his book Road to Air America, and I chatted with a woman who hosts a local show on a college radio station. Then I headed home.
Would you like to stay tuned? Please check out:
– NonStopRadio.com, a website devoted to promoting progressive talk radio across the country
– the dKosopedia Progressive radio stations list
– the dKosopedia Progressive radio timeline
Thanks! You’ve been a great audience.
I hope people will stop by our website and find out more about our group.
Sheldon and Anita Drobny? Oh yea, I’ve heard of them. They are big Lyndon Laruche supporters.
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http://www.foxnews.c…
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and they despise Israel,
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http://www.makethema…
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and they have a LONG history of shady business deals,
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http://michellemalki…
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http://radioequalize…
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Other than that, they’re great people.
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Kevin
But they all come from a single source, the last one you cite.
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First of all, the Drobnys are far from Lyndon Larouche supporters. As Drobny describes in his book, he arbitrarily chose a few Internet links to demonstrate to Byron York that Prescott Bush’s trading with Nazi Germany were well known. One of those links, it turned out, was from a Larouche supporter. Now it was probably sloppy of Drobny to have included that link in his set, but it’s just as sloppy of you (and York) to offer this as evidence that Drobny supports Larouche. No — it’s sloppier. And Drobny’s defense that others made the same claim of Bush-Nazi trading is not “lame”; it’s about as relevant as you can get.
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Your second link points to Drobny’s claim that Zionists in Palestine made a pact with Nazi Germany to get Jews out of Germany. Poorly substantiated again (he points to a single book that is now out of print), but if anything, Drobny is accusing Israel (actually “pre-Israel”) of a tactical mistake, as it helped prop up the German economy even as it may have allowed Jews to escape. I fail to see how Drobny’s accusation of “Zionists made a mistake” translates into “Israel is bad.”
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Michelle Malkin, the defender of the WWII incarceration of Japanese-Americans and the Swift Boat Liars, is not a credible source. Neither is Brian Maloney. And the piece they wrote together is pure innuendo. Drobny has “long known that money talks.” Well, duh! He’s a venture capitalist. That’s his business. You think that Richard Mellon Scaife doesn’t know that money talks? Drobny’s contributed money to the Democratic Party that’s flown “under the radar”? Under whose radar? Drobny forgot the names of two of his radio show hosts? Just tell me you’ve never forgotten a name. Drobny was taken aback by the mention of the Boys and Girls Club as a source of funding? Well, of course he was — he wasn’t responsible for that deal, but he did strive to make it right once he found that someone else had done it.
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Kevin, I have to say that you, Michelle, and Brian are full of it. But other than that, you’re great people.
So, conservatives who criticize liberals are “not a credible source”. How convenient for you. How about the former editor of that noted member of the vast right wing conspiracy, John Caroll of the LA Times,
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Dear Mr. Drobny,
I’m sorry you think my father wouldn’t approve of my working for Tribune Company. I’m also sorry you went to so much trouble researching his writings from the 1940s to make your point. Fortunately, my father lived a very long life — long enough to see me take the job in Tribune Company and to express his deep pride.
In my job as a newspaper editor, I receive quite a bit of mail from crackpots. So far in 2005, you’re leading the pack. Keep up the good work!
John Carroll
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Then there is Sheldon himself, we can just go straight to the source to see how nuts this guy is, from the HuffPost,
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“Furthermore, I would not put it past the right wing to flood the liberal blogs with hateful criticisms of Israel to advance a perception that liberals are anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. And I see Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over this.”
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What a joker. Or this, when he refers to the jihadists in Iraq as “rebels” and denies that Iran is suppling weapons in Iraq, which is a stone cold fact.
http://www.huffingto…
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The guy is a loon. That’s my opinion. Your entitled to yours, as am I.
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Kevin
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my question for you…
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in previous discussions about this topic, it seemed like some fans of this medium were in a state of denial.
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that is: listeners had voted with their feet, and they simply didn’t listen to air america in large numbers. but supporters had all sorts of competing explanations for low ratings, like bad hosts, bad stations, bad advertising.
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how do you see things?
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2. kevin, i haven’t seen you on BMG, but i think (?) i’ve read some of pundit review on the web, an interview with war reporter michael yon, which i thought was terrific.
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i wish you’d share more of that with BMG folks, because i don’t see enough of the “from-the-trenches” stuff here.
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however, your links don’t support the depths of your anti-drobny sentiment.
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what you describe as “hate israel” was not supported by drobny’s column….i say that as someone whose brother lives there. i tend to be pretty sensitive to anti-israeli commentary. drobny’s 2003 predictions of what would happen in iraq may look silly, but then so do most in hindsight.
Thanks. I like first-hand descriptions, too.
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Yup, the signal was weak. There was a tremendous amount of static. And most people didn’t even know it was out there because there was no advertising for the station. I knew it existed because I read Daily Kos. Otherwise, I would have had no idea. I didn’t listen to AM radio before, so I never would found it during a scan. How do listeners vote with their feet about something they’ve never stumbled across in the first place?
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Some of the hosts were better than others. I never was a big Al Franken fan. Randi Rhodes could be annoying. Stephanie Miller, whom I loved for a long time and still like, never really updated her shtick. But I thought Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and Mike Papantonio were excellent.
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GGW,
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Thanks for the kind words…not used to them at BMG.:) You are right, the link doesn’t support what I said, that they “despise” Israel. I take that one back. Too harsh a comment for the article I cited. I plead guilty.
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As for the rest, I don’t think I’m on very shaky ground to say this guy is way out there and has a long history of shady business dealings.
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I have had David on the radio with me several times, in studio once. We get along well. Civil discussion, agreeing to disagree. I have long admired BMG from a distance and rarely pop my head in with comments.
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As for Mike Yon. He is an amaizng man and a good friend. He is a true original. I think BMG readers/bloggers could benefit from more “from-the-trenches” military commentary. Check it out here,
http://www.michaelyo…
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Thanks again.
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Kevin
since that’s all I want to devote to discussing strategy with someone who wants to see my side lose and isn’t willing to respond to what I said previously.
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The biggest fault of Sheldon’s is that he’s not as rich as I would like. But there’s nothing I can do about that.
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The second is that he’s a loose cannon, and his pronouncements are a distraction from what should be his primary mission: funding progressive radio, which, for all practical purposes, wouldn’t exist without him.
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But there is nothing shady about what he’s done. Since he didn’t have enough money quick enough to get the network on the air, he had to accept the only people who seemed to have the money. In fact, they didn’t, and those buyers were truly shady. The shadiest of them, in fact, was Evan Cohen, who had been a Republican beforehand.
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Republicans, however, don’t care about anything shady on their side. Jack Abramoff was the bagman for decades. He and Ney and Cunningham and Norquist and all the rest had money-laundering down to a science. Hadn’t seen a scam like that since the Reagan-Bush team was selling weapons and drugs to our enemies on two continents.
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And as I’ve said before, apologists for Japanese-American incarceration and people who present paid Swift Boat liars as anything but what they are have zero credibility with me. Zero.
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That took eight minutes. Oh, well. Bye.
Liars? Proof?
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The “Winter Soldiers”, so-called, are about to get another broadside as is JF Kerry. Justice may be delayed, but it’s on its way.
right-wingers like to turn to vague threats of violence, huh?
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Since you asked, here’s a pretty good analysis of the Swifties. You can check out this as well.