Ten Years of Talk Radio -- Thank You

PHILADELPHIA (WPHT) -- Navel gazing about the business of radio is something I try to keep to myself. It's a business I've loved since I was a little kid. A business I've always dreamed of working in, and ultimately blessed to be able to make a living in today. I was a late bloomer in talk radio, but once I found my voice in it – I never looked back.

It's a forum that's introduced me to very impressive people. Hard working people. Accomplished, smart, thoughtful people. People of faith and of none at all. People of means, and those working hard to just get by. I have the opportunity to talk to teenagers and octogenarians and all ages in between. Different races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, too.

For all their differences, the thing that binds talk radio audiences together is a passion for information, well-formed opinion, and a sincere love of and concern for their communities, families, and country. It's a real, shared bond.

It's why I take such profound exception with some of my colleagues over the last years scolding or turning their back on the very people who built their careers.

You.

A great deal of money and publicity has been thrown at these colleagues I mention. They've written books suggesting talk radio is nothing but cynical show business masked as righteous indignation. They've even suggested they themselves were guilty of pedaling the lie, until their consciences got the better of them. With this newfound clarity, pop-culture leftists have gravitated toward them, too.

Now, they appear on talk shows and host their own shows selling a message of intellectual and emotional superiority to their "embarrassing" partisan past. Not only do they suggest their "old selves" were embarrassing and unenlightened, you can infer that if you were one of their listeners and enjoyed them – you too, must atone for your sins.

Most striking to me in their new, self-righteous sales pitch is their total lack of self-awareness. Do they understand how they're now coming off to the thousands who used to trust them? How can anyone spend years telling their audiences they stand for certain principles, ideas, candidates, etc. – only to turn around and embrace those whom they've outwardly always opposed?

I know what they'll say. "It's a conversation. It's listening to find common ground. It's not divisive. Angry is over." It seems to me, when you embrace - and in some cases endorse - those whom you've suggested for years prior would do great harm to the county – you're either mentally ill, or more likely a fraud.

So why should anyone believe them now? How does anyone they're now cozying up to trust they're not playing them for the same suckers as their former audience? And as these colleagues of mine wag their fingers at their former, "unenlightened" audiences to change their thinking – is there ever a quiet moment of reflective shame in their hearts?

Probably not. These are people who live very well heeled lifestyles. They spend time with exclusively wealthy people, in exclusively wealthy neighborhoods or isolated settings, in exclusive neighborhoods and regions of the country. In other words, you wouldn't catch them rubbing elbows with folks at a Trump rally. Ironically, the very folks who literally made their careers and funded the lifestyles they enjoy today.

Now, from the top of their mountain they look down at the great unwashed to teach you the error of your ways and thinking. Your anger, they say, is misplaced. Your firm belief in our nation's foundational principles is nothing more than "toxic" intolerance.

All of it said with the hope of currying favor with everyone from media executives to pop culture celebrities. It's fun and far easier to tell the left you can "see where they're coming from" than say, "I disagree with you, and here's why." Simply, it's fun to be liked by famous, wealthy people. The only price of admission is shelving those obnoxious principles.

That's why Rush Limbaugh always impressed me so much. He's a successful, wealthy guy. He's met and mingled with the most powerful people in government, Hollywood, and business.  A good many of them, he'd tell you, hate his guts. But it never caused him to waver in the job he's done for nearly thirty years.

Limbaugh always says the media didn't make him, so they can't destroy him. Personally, that always stuck with me more than anything else he's said about this business.

Yes, I'll admit I've been in situations and settings with people who don't like me, and by extension, you for listening to me. Maybe you have been on the receiving end of this, too. I'm talking about really wealthy people. Society. "Important" people. People who've told me to my face how stupid you and I are for saying and thinking the things we do. And in those moments, it's so tempting to fold and fake it and say, "you're right" just so I'll be invited back into their sphere.

But I always shake it off in the end. Largely because I'm violently uncomfortable with phoniness, but mostly because I get to come back to my studio the next day and take your calls. I get go out to bars and restaurants for station events and shake your hand and hear your story. I meet our sponsors – small business owners and entrepreneurs – who trust our show to promote their businesses to you. I go to church on Sunday and center myself to remember I'm merely of the Creation, not the center of it.

What I'm attempting to say here is, thank you. Like Rush says of his career, on a much smaller scale, I share the sentiment. Any success our show has enjoyed is not because of anything else but you for listening to it and supporting those who sponsor it. This show has afforded my family and me some great opportunities, but none of it matters if I betray the special trust and bond you and I have.

I never presume to know more than you, but it's my fervent hope I can entertain or share some new information with you every day. If I don't know the answer, I'll tell you and rely on you for help to figure it out. If you ever catch me saying something like "I'm trying to teach my audience…" as a colleague of mine said publicly about his audience this week – please call and berate me immediately.

So, as I enter my 10th year of talk radio in January – I reaffirm a promise to you. I will tell you the truth and work hard to get it right. When I get it wrong – and I will - I will work hard to honestly correct my mistakes. When I give you my opinion, it's because I mean it, not because I've crafted it as a cynical means to an end. And God willing, if still on the air ten years from now - I'm going to strive to be the same guy who started with you in this game ten years ago.

2017 promises to be exciting, and there's no place I'd rather be than with you on the radio for a front row seat to watch it all. Thank you for affording me the opportunity. Merry Christmas, and God bless you and your family.