Changes at Morning News
Glen Snarr has been a terrific board chair for the Morning News, taking the paper through some very turbulent times. Snarr announced his resignation as chair Wednesday (see also editorial lauding him), but he will remain a board member. Snarr was fearless during the bitter fight with the former Tribune owners over control of the Tribune, a battle eventually won by Media News’ Dean Singleton, who was backed by the Morning News. Resolution of that dispute allowed the Morning News to switch to morning publication.
Ellis Ivory, the new board chair, had an interesting political adventure last year, jumping into the Salt Lake County mayoral race at the last minute when Nancy Workman was politically wounded, but eventually losing rather handily to Peter Corroon. Ivory has a lot of energy and experience and will be an aggressive board chair.
Share Your Opinions About Talk Radio
Talk radio has become a major political force, both nationally and locally. I would like to hear from Utah Policy Daily readers whether you listen to talk radio, who your favorite or least favorite hosts are, and whether you think talk radio is good or bad for society.
A friend of mine characterized talk radio this way: “It’s the uninformed talking to the uninhibited.” There’s a lot of truth to that. I enjoy listening to talk radio when a guest is on who has some real expertise and knowledge of an issue and shares interesting insights. I dislike listening (and I switch stations) when uninformed people ramble on about issues they really know nothing about and the host has little to add that is noteworthy.
I’m not a big radio listener but I usually have KSL Radio or Oldies on when I’m driving. So I hear snippets of Doug Wright, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. I’m not much familiar with other local talk show hosts.
Wright has clearly become a significant factor in Utah politics. Top politicians jump at the chance to get on his show and he gets other provocative guests. Whenever a politician or interest group is promoting a position or trying to get publicity, they seek to get on Wright’s show. Interest groups often try to organize callers to flood the phone lines when they hear Wright will be discussing an issue important to them. For people promoting or opposing particular issues, the value of getting on Wright’s show is now on par with getting an audience with newspaper editorial boards or getting a press release published. Wright’s moderately conservative ideology seems to click well with most Utahns.
I must confess to some sort of guilty pleasure listening to Hannity and O’Reilly. I didn’t like either of them at first, but they’ve kind of grown on me. I don’t agree with some (and sometimes a lot) of what they say, but they’re such good performers that I enjoy listening to them. It’s at least good for a laugh at how outrageous it gets. They obviously have figured out they’re entertainers as much as anything else, and they’re awfully good at their craft. Hannity does get some excellent guests and I usually learn something listening to him.
All in all, I believe the rise of conservative voices delivered through talk shows, newsletters and blogs is good for the country, offsetting the much more liberal mainstream media that in the past had controlled mass communications.
So what do you think? Send me a message at daily@utahpolicy.com and tell me what hosts you like and what you think about talk radio. I’ll share your thoughts with UPD readers.
KUTV News Video on the Web
KUTV Channel 2 has unveiled a terrific new Web site. Features include video of top local stories (complete with some video ads), weather and traffic updates, slideshows and webcams, stock market quotes and indexes, sports stories and scoreboards, a search engine that localizes the news to the town or community nearest you, an XML feed, a news aggregation service that tracks names and topics of your choice, and lots of article and video links to the top national news stories at CBS.
The video works quite well with my DLS service. The KUTV site is further evidence that video is quickly becoming more and more common on the Internet, and TV and the Web are converging. Soon, if you miss the 10 p.m. newscast you will be able to get most or all the video for most channels on the Web. More and more Web sites will be featuring video, and full-scale video-on-demand can’t be far behind. -- Golden Webb
Teacher Program is Producing
The University of Phoenix is helping Utah deal with a projected shortage of school teachers. Some 232 U. of P. students have now qualified to become elementary and secondary teachers after completing their Master of Arts in Education program.
The program, introduced in November 2001, allows individuals who already have a bachelor’s degree to obtain both a teaching license and a master’s degree in elementary or secondary education in a two-year program. In less than four years, U. of P. has graduated and licensed 232 teachers, with about 90% of them staying in Utah.
With four Utah locations, University of Phoenix is Utah’s second-largest private university and America’s largest private accredited university, specializing in high-quality education for working adults.
Thought for the Day
"The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort. The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received."
--Confucius (Source: The Federalist Patriot) |
Utah
Policy Daily is a service