Chronicles of NARN

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost writes an overly self-effacing (of himself) and gratifyingly laudatory (for us) post on his appearance on the Northern Alliance Radio Network (NARN) show last weekend.

Doing a radio interview into a cell phone - especially if it's your first radio intervew - is a little like trying to sing opera through a Mister Microphone. It's especially hard if you're doing it, as Joe did, from a rifle range. Or so it seemed. The phone line had a loud, rhythmic "snap" that actually hurt through the headphones.

Technical glitches aside, Joe Carter is a great interview - the incisive intelligence you see on Evangelical Outpost is still there on the air. I highly recommend him to any media people who are looking for a great perspective on the war, and much more.

His post brings up some interesting points.

Joe notes:

The NARN model is based on a simple premise: take people with interesting viewpoints, something to say, and an ability to communicate and give them airtime.

There's a lot of luck involved, too. After shows, many of the guys will smile and say "It's like falling off a log". When it all works, it is - and we've gotten pleasantly spoiled by the fact that the NARN guys have such great chemistry together, something that is all the more amazing when you realize that the show came together with no rehearsal, no serious preparation. In fact, when the show started on March 6, I had met most of the guys exactly twice, at lunch with Hewitt and at the studio the week before, where I called a one-hour meeting to show everyone what a microphone looked like and how headphones worked. If the show is a success, it's because by a pure roll of the dice, we managed to find 10 or so guys that just plain click on the air.

But as Joe notes, the premise is simple - and I'm sure that if the NARN continues to succeed the way it has (far beyond my wildest pipe-dreams, to be honest) it'll be tried again. Bloggers have been percolating upward through the media for a while - the likes of Glenn Reynolds are becoming A-list guests - and liberal uber-blogger Atrios got a shot filling in for Janeane Garofalo in April.

Content-wise, of course, Joe notes a huge advantage we have:

In the last hour of Saturday’s show, the show featured Vox Day. Vox, who is a syndicated columnist as well as a popular blogger, is a “Christian libertarian”, a inimitable viewpoint you’re unlikely to find espoused in the mainstream media...By adding him to the lineup, NARN shows that they are interested in airing unique voices.

The choice of adding me to the show was also rather radical. When discussing the Abu Ghraib scandal, most media have either talked to other journalists or interviewed high-ranking military officers. Since the atrocities were committed by enlisted reservists, the NA took what should be the common sense choice and talked to someone who was both enlisted and familiar with reservists...I’ve been a Marine for over fifteen years and yet I can’t recall the last time an active-duty enlisted service member was given a full thirty minutes of air time to present their views on military issues.

Joe hits on a huge point; a hugely fun thing about NARN is that we can straddle both talk-radio worlds; we can talk eclectic without sounding like NPR (Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson of Powerline books the most fascinating guests I've ever dealt with), and we can do talk radio that goes outside the traditional template for conservative talk radio. It helps that most of us aren't "radio people" (only Lileks and I have ever done radio for money before). We bring perspectives and backgrounds to the table that most commercial (and public) talk radio people just don't.

It could be the recipe for a lot of interesting projects in the future.

But the big question that every radio station's management will ask - and "will it be interesting" won't make the top ten list of questions - is "where's the money". It's a good question. Radio's not a charity (unless you're Air America and George Soros is keeping you afloat) - commercial radio floats on a sea of money, that substance that talks while BS walks. We are, quite frankly, lucky that AM1280 has given us three hours of air time a week that we don't have to pay for, basically on the promise that we'll be a net gain for them someday. It doesn't happen often - the reason weekend radio is, as Joe correctly notes, "...programs with titles such as “The Home Mortgage Show” or “Here’s to Your Health.”, shows so dull it makes you wonder how their hosts even manage to stay awake through them" is because they buy the time for their shows. That's right - most weekend talk radio is, essentially, infomercials. AM1280 is, essentially, waving off three hours of infomercials to run NARN. Not many station managers will take that sort of chance on an idea this unproven. I think everyone involved would like to see the Northern Alliance develop a raft of sponsors and become a profitable venture for AM1280 - that, in fact, will be the arbiter of real success. There are possibilities here.

There are no doubt dozens of bloggers, and groups of bloggers, that could get together a show every bit as interesting as the NARN. I'd love to hear people like Infinite Monkeys or Michelle Catalano on the air. Even non-commercial radio could benefit from bloggers' input - a gleeful eclectic like a Sheila O'Malley could do a lot to un-stodgify public radio. And I wonder if Air America would be a very different proposition if they'd shucked their Hollywood-style, top-down, downright-condescending approach and tried out a few of the more interesting lefty bloggers? I think Oliver Willis, Kevin Drum and/or Wonkette would do a much more interesting and vastly more saleable show than, say, Laura Flanders or Robert Kennedy Jr. (or perhaps Marty Kaplan).

The real question is, can the idea pay its way?

The next 6-12 months should be interesting, both for the NARN and for the whole idea of bloggers doing radio.

Posted by Mitch at May 17, 2004 07:40 AM