Here’s a blast from the recent past: you can listen to Rory’s September appearance on the Peter B. Collins show at the show’s new audio archives. Also on the same show that day were Robert Parry, Ari Melber, the Lieutenant Governor of Califronia, Matt Corley and Brad Friedman.

Everyone’s talking about the insider expose published by Milwaukee Magazine from Dan Shelly. the sub-headline reads, “[t]he former news director of WTMJ reveals how talk show hosts like Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner work to get us angry.” Far from being a local phenomenon, Shelley talks about the nuts and bolts of talk radio; the rhetorical techniques, the psychological profiling of the audience, the thin-skinnedness of critics when criticism is turned on them. Without ruining the article, let’s just skip to the very end:

In response to this story, we received the following e-mail from WTMJ:
We are surprised and saddened that a former employee, who worked with us for ten years, would choose to attack our talk shows hosts and company in this manner. Neither the station nor our hosts were offered a chance to comment on the claims made by the author. Newsradio 620 WTMJ stands by Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner and will continue to give their listeners the opportunity to share and participate in the best local talk programming in Milwaukee.

The Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly explains the connection between talk radio, the Fairness Doctrine, and Net Neutrality. An excerpt where Rory is quoted about Shock Jocks:

“The Fairness Doctrine is a 20th-century response to 21st-century problems,” he says. “It didn’t work so well in the first place. It was misused and abused by political operatives in both parties.” There is, O’Connor claims, “no way in Hell” that the Fairness Doctrine’s going to be reinstated. Conservatives are only milking the subject to “excite the base, create outrage, and drive up ratings.”

For some more information about the Fairness Doctrine and its applicability under an Obama presidency, read Paul Jenensch’s piece in the Connecticut Post on conservative talkers” response to the election.

Did you know O’Connor is an Irish name? The Irish Voice did, and they interviewed Rory about Shock Jocks, the tone of the recent national election, and a little family political history. Read it here!

Last week Rory flew out to the desert and appeared on Tucson’s KXCI Community Radio on David Yerkey’s A View From Slightly Off Center (listen here) and then, a few days later, gave a talk which was listen to here which was followed by a little audience Q-and-A.

“What a man sow shall he reap —
And you know that talk is cheap…”
- Bob Marley

John McCain was right in August when he called John Lewis one of the “wisest people” he knew.

So when Representative Lewis — a Georgia Democrat and veteran of the civil rights movement – recently denounced the McCain/Palin campaign for its use of divisive rhetoric and said the negative tone of the Republican presidential campaign reminded him of the hateful atmosphere that segregationist Governor George Wallace fostered in Alabama in the 1960s, he was calling it like it is.
[Read more...]

Rory makes another appearance on Laura Flanders” GritTv web show, talking about “the rise of talk radio and its influence on the American electorate.”

View the video here.

Shock Jocks was just featured on FireDogLake’s Book Salon, where Ian Williams delivers a glowing endorsement:

Rory’s book is essential reading for those of whose stomachs are not strong enough to listen round the clock to this stuff.