Primary Colors

Don Watson, an ex-talk host and a very nice man, has penned several excellent posts at his site on the squawk radio community and their godawful “coverage” of the New Hampshire Primary. Unfortunately I fear it will all fall on deaf ears - no doubt we in the biz will open the trades next month to the usual series of puff pieces about the "great job" done by the talkers at hand, yadda yadda yadda...

Something else came to mind: many years ago a program director I worked for offered the following: "I believe in going against the grain. If I were programming in Madison, Wisconsin I'd hire an arch-conservative for the prime slot; in Memphis, I'd hire a liberal. Going against the predominant sentiment makes for more interesting radio."

Works for me...wonder how often it's been tried in recent years...