In Milwaukee County, where 3/4 of the county voted for John Kerry in the last presidential election, local media outlets say there’s no market for Air America or a liberal voice. Their Republican bias is clear and they have shown, even at the expense of their shareholders, their willingness to burying politics stories critical of Republicans.

We know that the market exists for a liberal talk radio station because the last presidential election proved it. Case in point, in the city of Milwaukee, only 70,000 voted for Republican George Bush while 200,000 voted for Democrat John Kerry. Do those 200,000 people not listen to the radio?

The Milwaukee County suburbs split with approximately 100,000 Bush voters and 100,000 Kerry voters. Yet still, radio execs insinuate that 300000 people who voted for Kerry want to listen to Mark Belling or Charlie Sykes every day. Bellings ratings for WISN are nearly the same as the oldies station. Moderates and liberals have no place to go on the commercial radio dial.

In Madison you can listen to anything, left, right or center. But in Milwaukee, there is no diversity of viewpoint among stations that broadcast with a strong signal. When driving on I-94 east from Madison, once you hit Jefferson or Fort Atkinson, you’ll hit just right wing rhetoric talkers and music stations.

The Journal Broadcast Group’s bias extends to more than their daily newspaper and their radio stations, if also infects local municipal politics but in a subtle way. For quite a long time, CNI’s only political columnist was WTMJ talk radio show host and noted neo-conservative and democrat-hater Charlie Sykes. In Sykes’ column, he regularly and mercilessly targets moderates and liberals and in rare cases will attack a moderate Republican if they are running against a neo-con Republican.

A few years ago, I called CNI Publishing Editor Roger Bartel to express my concern over the one sided editorials CNI was publishing by its primary columnist and to offer my services to provide balance. Bartel mentioned that Chris Radish would be writing a liberal column to provide balance. At the time it sounded like the Journal Broadcasting Group’s CNI was going to have balance and I was hopeful.

I was wrong.

Radish’s column, inappropriately titled “Radically Speaking” focuses instead on large themes — how bad she feels that politics is turning nasty and how she’s worried about how the world will be when her child grows up. I’ve even learned that Radish likes good beer (she’s a Goose Island fan). Occasionally Radish will tackle issues such as last weeks column entitled “Compassion will triumph over hate” where she condemns the right-wing activists who are protesting at fallen soldiers funerals.

Alternately, Charlie Sykes column normally attacks specific policymakers who do not adhere to his Republican ideals as was the case last week where he once again attacked Democrat Jim Doyle.

A quick comparison of the two shows that Radish writes about her laments, a few issues and her favorite beer. From Sykes we read about how bad he believes specific democratic candidates and office holders are.

Our political system does share some of the blame with media outlets. In Wisconsin, voters are not required to register as Republicans or Democrats. We have open primaries where members of the opposing party often cross over in primaries to vote for the weaker candidate of the opposing party so their true candidate of choice will have a stronger chance in the general election. Members of local legislative boards, whether they are serving on the county board, a school board or a city council, are not required to run as a partisan yet administrative positions such as Treasurer, City Clerk and Sheriff must.

When Edward R Murrow took a chance and exposed Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) of wrongdoing, the media earned respect. Today, wrongdoing is often accepted in the media, corruption stories go unpublished, and organizations like the Journal Broadcasting Group have begun the accusing and unsubstantiated practice of McCarthyism in the media.

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