One of the bad raps given to News/Talk radio hosts is that it’s a bunch of angry Boomers yelling about Democrats. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no shortage of that kind of content if you are seeking it, but there is so much creativity and depth to dozens of quality News/Talk radio hosts around the country who are so much more than other media perceive them to be. This week’s story around South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) was an incredible opportunity to show your audience that you can have fun at the expense of “one of your own.”

As is now well known, Kristi Noem has infamously admitted in her upcoming memoir No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward (buy it here, dog leash not included) to killing her dog Cricket (R.I.P.) because the dog wasn’t trained properly and didn’t handle itself well when pheasant hunting and had killed a couple of the neighbor’s chickens.

There was also a fiasco in the book’s passage, in which she describes meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as her story has consistently changed. However, she has declined to say that the account was false — even though the passage has since been redacted.

To make matters worse, Noem seemed hellbent on trying to dig herself out of this mess by appearing on TV shows around the country in recent days, which were generally disastrous. So it’s been an absolute trainwreck of a week for Kristi Noem. And it’s made for an incredible opportunity for News/Talk radio content.

I talked to and heard from some hosts concerned about mocking Noem, a perceived rising star in the Republican Party and potential VP pick for Donald Trump.

Please. Who cares? Create great and entertaining content for your audience. Don’t worry about whether or not you might one day get to interview Kristi Noem. Plus, based on what I saw on TV, she’s not a compelling interview anyway. 

There aren’t many things that Americans near-universally agree on anymore, but being against killing dogs has to be pretty high up on that list. Loving dogs is as American as apple pie. You will be on the side of (at least) 80-90% of the American public on this one. There was no fear of alienating the pro-dog killing crowd if that is a constituency that event exists. And if it does, I’m not interested in catering to it. 

So, with that being said, I hope you used this as an opportunity to get creative and have fun. Whether via on-air bits, like an on-air candlelight vigil to Cricket, playing horrific sound bytes from Noem as she tried to defend herself on cable news (which was an absolute disaster) and/or mixing callers into the equation, it was content gold.

Granted, this story was not local, and while we emphasize the importance of local content in this weekly column, some things are too good to pass up. And at our core, entertainment needs to lead the way.

And heck, if you really want to localize it and get audience participation, throw this one out there, “Which local politician is most likely to be a dog killer?” Too crass? You could convince me of that, but you get the broader point. Don’t avoid one of the week’s biggest stories out of fear of offending the audience. 

When a public figure deserves to be dogged, don’t hold back. Inform, entertain, and let the chips fall where they may. 

“It feels really not real. I can’t believe I just talk to people and make stupid jokes all day long, and I get paid to do that,” Jesse Kelly said of his renewed contract with Premiere Networks.

His unfiltered opinion and humor reach millions of people nationwide both on air and through streaming. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I wanted to keep me here. I’ll take it. I’m honored to be here for sure,” the host of The Jesse Kelly Show told Barrett News Media over a Zoom call.

Growing up in the Ohio Rust Belt, Kelly never planned to work in media. He served as a Marine, one of the many pieces in his life that he believes helped prepare him for his media endeavor. “Anytime you go through anything hard in life, it gives you a better perspective on everything. I was in the Marines just for four years, a grunt marine. But you see a lot of the world. We see a lot of the ugly side and the wonderful side. It’s not all bad, but it does give you a real good perspective on the rest of your life.”

Kelly was honorably discharged and later picked up several jobs including in construction and RV sales. While working, driving, and “living a normal life” he often listened to talk radio… and talked to himself.

“My wife, she loves to give me crap about it. We’ll be in there just getting ready to go out on a date or something. I’ll be sitting at the mirror, and I don’t do it on purpose, but I’ll be sitting there and I’ll have some thoughts going through my head, and I’ll start mouthing them, and I’ll start whispering them. And all of a sudden she’s out here saying ‘Talking to yourself again?’”

Today, he’s not just talking to himself but “doing life” with his listeners, which is something he loves. “When people email in, (or) they call in, you find out that you cook with them every evening. You make dinner with the kids with them, you work out with them, you mow the lawn with them, you drive to work, you’re sitting in traffic, you’re at work with them. I love that it’s fun. It’s fun being able to ride along with people.”

Calling himself a “big sappy weenie,” Kelly noted some of the more touching letters from fans he’s received. “I’ve had letters before from kids who listen without their parents because they have rough home situations. It helps put them to sleep at night. That makes my whole day. That makes my whole life.”

Another moving note he received, “Jesse. I’ve been sober now for three years. Your show is one of the things that keeps me sober. I just wanted to let you know.”

He said of the notes, “Helping anyone, [even] one person, in even the smallest way, makes the entire thing worth it. It’s better than the flights and the fancy trips to New York. When you got to meet with the suits or the paycheck or anything else, having meaning behind a job. That’s dumb, right? I’m talking for a living, but having [my show] means something to someone, it means a lot.”

Jesse Kelly is more than just a radio host. He also has his show, I’m Right with Jesse Kelly on The First TV. All those years of driving listening to talk radio, and talking to himself, have aided his natural ability to be a great storyteller.

“Entertain me. Tell me a story. Make me feel it. Put me there. Make me feel it. That’s what keeps you in the car. When you get to where you’re going, it’s time to run into the gas station and get some Doritos. But no, I have to be right here because I have to see how this story ends.”

This story, however, is just the beginning for Kelly. Along with his successful TV and radio show, his book The Anti-Communist Manifesto is being published globally. “It was the best-selling political book in the country last July it went international. They’re buying it in Turkey at this point in time. It’s really weird to me.”

Kelly noted it’s hard to believe people like the book because there isn’t an audience giving you immediate feedback. “No one’s cheering you on. You don’t see anybody laughing in his truck as you make a joke. You don’t know, you put out the book and it stuck. And so it turned out that people loved it.”

It took years of convincing from several people to get Jesse Kelly to write his first book. However, he wants everyone to know it’s not going to be a series. “I don’t have any plans to write another. I’m certainly no author. I wouldn’t consider myself an author, but I’m glad I wrote that one. And it is cool that my parents have my book on the shelf. My boys, my oldest son reads it. I walked in and he’s sitting there reading my book.”

His advice for those looking to follow in his media foot steps is simple, live life first. “You should aspire to be a lot better than I ever am or ever will be. That’s for one. For two, and I’m not judging how anyone chooses to try to make a career — especially as a young person, it’s hard to make it out there — people who want to go into a career in media in my opinion, go into it way too early.”

Kelly believes his success is because he’s lived a “normal life” for most of his life. 

“I’ve struggled to pay the bills. I’ve lived it. I worked in construction. I’ve needed time-and-a-half in order to pay my mortgage this month. I’ve got to make a sale, I’ve got to get my kid to school. I’m out of gas. I can’t afford to repair my car. This is life… Live life first. Come to this later.”

There’s a widespread belief that media bias is running rampant these days, more than ever before. Who do we blame? Well, the news media, of course, and social media. But we’re largely overlooking a third culprit in the confusion: We The People.

One of the first newspapers in Colonial American history was the Boston News-Letter, published in 1704. It was highly political and heavily subsidized by the British government. Opposing publications appeared soon after. By 1900, major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking, and sensationalism.

Media bias is nothing new, folks. It is human nature rooted in beliefs and motivated by a desire to make our world a better place. And, to turn a profit.

This week the Christian Science Monitor reported: “Overall trust in the news media has been falling for decades, along with a broader loss of trust in other public institutions. Four in 10 Americans say they have ‘no confidence’ in the media’s news reporting, while only 32% have a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of confidence. Back in 2003, when Gallup asked the same question, only 1 in 10 expressed “no confidence” while more than half expressed confidence.”

No doubt about it, social media has shaken the information landscape, but are social media and other new technology platforms to blame for the decline of newspapers, TV, and radio?

Charlie Meyerson is a radio/print/internet journalist for more than half a century, sometime adjunct professor at Roosevelt and Northwestern Universities and Columbia College Chicago, and publisher of Chicago Public Square:

“’Blame’ isn’t the word I’d use, but it’s all connected. Forty years ago, if you were away from home—and the then-nascent CNN—and you wanted fresh news in the middle of the day, you had one choice: Radio. Now, of course, it’s a phone, a tablet or a laptop—which can give you radio news, yes, but also all the TV stations, all the newspapers, all the wire services, all the blogs, all the email newsletters, all of YouTube, all the movies, all the podcasts, Spotify, TikTok, Facebook. In a media world where everything competes with everything, how can those old media expect to continue to dominate?”

Charlie’s right, of course. We’ve seen the print news media forced to battle the free digital onslaught of online news, blogs, memes, and hearsay by throwing up paywalls just to stay in business, effectively reducing the number of potential readers who want their reporting expertise and perspectives.

Now, we’re starting to see some evidence that declining trust in traditional major media is inspiring those organizations to do some soul-searching. Earlier this week in The Hill:

The executive editor of The New York Times (Joe Kahn) is saying it’s not up to the news organization he runs, or any other, to stop former President Trump from winning a second term in office this fall.

“So there are people out there in the world who may decide, based on their democratic rights, to elect Donald Trump as president. It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of [President] Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening.

Kahn’s statement has elicited much criticism and some agreement from the media establishment, divided largely along political lines, as you might expect. Historians have told us for decades that the idea of fair and balanced news reporting has never been as noble as it is practical.

The U.S. press didn’t always have such a fussy code of ethics about Opinion Journalism vs. News Reporting… The New York Post was started in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton as a platform from which the Federalist Party proclaimed its views, including attacks on Thomas Jefferson.

And that was not the exception. The early U.S. press was filled with opinion and partisan attacks and newspapers were often subsidized by political parties until early in the 19th Century.

The U.S. press didn’t adopt the idea of Neutrality as a noble step in our common search for truth and meaning. It was a business decision.

– Stony Brook University School of Journalism

Again, bias, it seems, is part of human nature. The bigger problem today is how we perceive it. Again, Charlie Meyerson:

“I’m far more worried about reporting by journalists who (incredibly and impossibly) pretend to have no opinions than by those who are open about their position and let an audience decide, story by story, which reporting is fair and which isn’t.”

Many journalists agree but ironically are either keeping it to themselves or not being heard. So, here’s the first step: traditional news media need to be transparent about views and tireless in unbiased sourcing.

We also need to take a bold step in explaining to Americans that they have the bigger responsibility, to learn about issues and think before posting.

Somewhere in the past forty or fifty years – I suspect it was Vietnam – we started to believe in the sanctity of self to the exclusion of the outside world. We embraced the bumper sticker philosophy which allowed us to be caring people without taking the time needed to invest any effort in the issues we choose to attack or support. For five or six bucks these days I can make a public proclamation of caring about the environment or celebrating LGBTQ “awareness” by displaying a magnetized car ribbon and doing nothing else.

And now we have social media platforms that empower us to spend our days expressing ill-informed, half-baked opinions without bothering to think for ourselves.

As citizens, we have a responsibility to learn history and civics and to think and discuss these things dispassionately, especially with our kids. If we don’t, our opinions are less than meaningless, damaging our society and threatening American democracy.

Broadcast and print news organizations need to be more transparent, as we like to say. It’s time to bring this conversation to the front porch of every American and tell them bluntly: We’ll do our part but you have to learn and think before you muddy the water. You need to teach your kids why and how it all matters.

In my senior year of high school, 1968-69, I took a required Civics class. It gave me the most important and enduring lessons of my life. There is a current movement to return history and civics mandates in public schools but it takes a lot longer to re-install something than it did to remove it.

Long before I got into the radio news business my father told me something I’ve never forgotten: “People say you have a right to your opinion. That’s only half true. You have a right to an informed opinion. If you don’t know what you’re talking about you should shut the hell up.”