LIBERALS ON ATTACK DESPITE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, AIR AMERICA BRINGS A LEFT-LEANING SPIN TO TALK RADIO.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Air America, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network, knows it's in for a bumpy ride.

Network CEO Mark Walsh, the entrepreneur who made his fortune in online trade magazines, already plans to sink some $30 million into Air America over the next three years before hopefully turning a profit. And last Wednesday's inaugural show - at least in the Los Angeles area - seemed to prove the point that turning radio listeners on to liberal talk shows won't be easy.

Instead of ``The O'Franken Factor,'' the series featuring comic Al Franken that was supposed to launch the liberal talk-show network, listeners heard dead air. Fragments of two Beatles tunes ensued, followed by a bit of a commercial and an invitation to ``Stick around for the rest of 'The O'Franken Factor.' '' The rest?

Finally, at 12:11 p.m., Franken's voice hit the airwaves, but not delivering the statement of purpose that served as his introduction to East Coast listeners (in L.A., that came at the very end of his three-hour bloc). Segments were broadcast out of order, a problem persisting into ``The Randi Rhodes Show,'' which began with a disorienting segment in which the host, a Florida talk-radio mainstay, didn't even introduce herself.

Sound problems dogged comedian/actress Janeane Garofalo's ``The Majority Report'' throughout her Thursday-night broadcast.

``We were discussing it as it was happening - our engineer was turning different shades of beet,'' Garofalo recalls sanguinely. ``When things get bad, it's actually good. You can enjoy that Murphy's Law-quality that makes things funnier. I have no idea how much I'll like that aspect of it if it persists, however.''

Jon Sinton, president of Air America, references a Franken on-air joke about Limbaugh's recent woes when he jokes of all his network's miscues, ``We thought we could do drug-free talk radio, and apparently we were wrong.'' He attributed the problems to the relatively unfamiliar new technology employed by the network.

Air of anticipation

Air America can currently be heard on five stations, including Santa Monica's KBLA-AM (1580) and the Inland Empire's KCAA-AM (1050), as well as on a live stream at airamericaradio.com, where about 750,000 people tried to listen in on Franken's inaugural broadcast. Sinton says the network was only expecting half a million listeners, and the system was overloaded; it was subsequently bolstered. Since then, a half-million listeners have tuned in daily via the Internet.

The network comes at a time of vast seismic political polarity. Polls show conservatives giving President George W. Bush the highest marks they've given a Republican leader in decades, while liberals give him the lowest. Few, it seems, have a neutral opinion.

Before Air America launched, Franken said, ``I have a lot of passion about what I'm talking about and think it's important. Am I going to be as dogmatic and blustery as (Rush) Limbaugh? No. I can't be. I'm me. I'll put more humor into it. Then I'll add some silly humor. We're going to do a different kind of show, but on the other hand, it will be a chance for liberals to give voice to their anger and be compelling.''

Franken's show's title represents another dig at Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom the comic also dusted up in his best- selling book ``Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'' (Fox sued, unsuccessfully, to prevent the book's publication, reportedly at O'Reilly's behest). Franken says he hasn't heard from O'Reilly since then (though O'Reilly mocked the concept of liberal talk radio in his weekly syndicated column), but at the annual news correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, ``I did get a glare like a death stare from him.''

Garofalo, who has commanded large audiences with her film roles and stand-up act, says of her radio gig, ``This is actually perfect. My stand- up, as I've gotten older, has gotten increasingly chatty. This is a natural progression in a certain way. What I might try to express through stand-up at this point might seem unsuccessful - strident and wordy - and radio seems a better home for me.''

Newsmakers and liberal icons served as guests throughout Air America's first week, among them White House terrorism whistle-blower and author of ``Against All Enemies'' Richard Clarke, 9-11 commission member Bob Kerrey, filmmaker/author Michael Moore, Princeton economist/New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, comics Bill Maher and Larry David, singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, ``West Wing'' star Bradley Whitford, former Vice President Al Gore and current presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Critics thus far have been respectful if unenthusiastic. Franken, suggested Daily Variety's Brian Lowry, ``discovered it may be easier to lampoon the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity than to walk a mile in their shoes.'' And while welcoming the format, the St. Petersburg Times' Eric Deggans conceded, ``Franken's show wasn't quite the revolution it could have been.''

``We're not satisfied that we're there in terms of quality, but it's a good start,'' Air America's Sinton admits.

Skeptical observers

Even before the network launched, cynics on both sides of the ideological spectrum wondered whether liberal talk radio could succeed, since the left tends to parse shades of gray more assiduously than the right, which may (or may not, depending on one's politics) make for better policy in Washington but scarcely makes for good, old-fashioned tub-thumping entertainment.

A comic essay in the March 29 New Yorker magazine, titled ``Liberal Radio Network Employment Application,'' summed up the conundrum thusly:

``Q: If Rush Limbaugh were to call me a fuzzy-minded elitist knee-jerk bleeding-heart liberal sissy without cojones enough to support the death penalty, I would:

A) Softly weep; B) Admit he has a point; C) Ask what the ACLU would do.''

Some at the network were amused, others irritated; at any rate, the piece was affixed to a door at the network's New York offices.

CEO Walsh said he laughed at the piece, but ``it implied we were namby-pamby, and I thought it was wrong in saying Democrats inappropriately concede points. We're as passionate as anyone, and yet that ability to divine the gray between the black and white is something we're proud of. It's absolutely stunning that people who listen to Rush Limbaugh call themselves Dittoheads. That implies they do not think; they need Rush to tell them what to think.''

Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central's ``The Daily Show'' and co-host, with Public Enemy's outspoken rapper Chuck D, of ``Unfiltered,'' Air America's weekdays-at-9 arts-and-politics program, offers a different take.

``Liberals failed when wedged into the middle of right-wing blather on talk-radio stations,'' she says. ``But look what happened when (conservative pundit) Michael Savage was on mainstream news. (MSNBC canceled his show after controversial remarks.) Look at what happened to Rush (Limbaugh) on ESPN. (He was dismissed after a controversial remark about an established black athlete).

``The lesson is, don't shove someone into a platform that doesn't want you. You wouldn't play Mel Tillis on a jazz station. Rush is popular with his audience, but those who hired him at ESPN didn't listen to what he said - and people were freaked out by him.'' Winstead adds, ``We're not NPR-y. We have buttons and posters that say, 'NPR is nice; we're not.' ''

Marty Kaplan, a screenwriter (``The Distinguished Gentleman'') and speechwriter (for Walter Mondale, among others) whose Air America program ``So What Else Is News?'' (weeknights at 7 p.m.) is the only show to originate from Los Angeles, adds, ``The right has become the media establishment and so is a fat target for parody and ridicule. It's very juicy - a lot of fun to make fun of those people. Instead of those earnest shades of gray, people on the left enjoying putting the right on whoopee cushions.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

Will it fly?

The Daily News consulted pundits across the political spectrum to offer forecasts on Air America's chances (conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity declined comment).

Amy Goodman, host of KPFK-FM's ``Democracy Now!'' and author of the upcoming book ``The Exception to the Rulers,'' has been on the air since 1996 and boasts 200 outlets for her show, so she would be in a position to dispute Air America's claim to be the first liberal radio network. Instead, she says, ``The more channels, the more avenues for discussion and debate, the better. We need a multiplicity of forums for a healthy society.''

David Brooks, a conservative columnist for The New York Times and author of the best seller ``Bobos in Paradise'' and the upcoming ``On Paradise Drive,'' an examination of life from the city to the outer suburbs, suggests, ``Its impact will be minimal. Conservatives go to talk radio because they feel alienated from the whole media dial (including publishing and television), except for talk radio. Liberals would like KCRW to be angrier, but feel at home with NPR.'' Brooks adds that Franken has invited him to be a guest, and ``I'd be amused to be on. I don't know if I'd be happy to be on.''

Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of ``The Price of Loyalty,'' the best seller about former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's days in the Bush Administration, who will speak to USC's Annenberg School of Journalism at noon Thursday, adds, ``It's an experiment that could work. Al and Janeane are funny and if they remember to be funny, it'll probably succeed. The fact is, that's why Rush succeeds - he mixes it up (politics and humor).''

Steve Marmel, conservative comic whose animated topical series, ``This Just In,'' airs on Spike TV, says, ``It's doomed. I went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and approached both liberal and conservative papers. When I went to the liberal outlets, they gave me a laundry list of things you couldn't make fun of, but when I went to the conservative outlets, they said, 'Just be funny.'... A liberal radio network has no ability to be laser-focused on a single message, and because of that, I don't think it's going to stick.''

Paris Qualles, a TV screenwriter whose credits include ``The Tuskeegee Airmen'' and ` `The Rosa Parks Story,'' offers, `'`Wholesale and almost overnight, liberal voices were banished from talk radio to NPR. ... This is the crux of the culture wars; more so than in any other medium, it's radio that's in the forefront of defining this war.'' He adds, ``They're going to have to do better than their launch. It's not just (for) flaming liberals, it's (for) moderates who want a decent airing of issues without being shouted down and being called unpatriotic. We need more than Air America to counter this conservative juggernaut.''

Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the best seller ``Glorious Appearing,'' the final installment of the ``Left Behind'' series of religious novels about Armageddon, notes, ``If it's true that our country is evenly polarized, there will be as big an audience for the left as for the right. Whether that's positive or not, they might just cancel each other out. Those on the right will listen to Rush, on the left, to Franken. They'll be shooting at each other all day long and they'll just cancel each other out. ... I'd like to see more civility between them.''

- D.K.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) AIR WARS

Al Franken and Air America's liberals take on Rush Limbaugh and the conservatives

Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

(3) Al Franken, left, Janeane Garofolo and her co-host Sam Seder are trying to overcome the glitches that have plagued their Air America shows during the politically liberal radio network's first days on the airwaves.

(4) Lizz Winstead

Theo Wargo/WireImage.com

Box:

Will it fly? (see text)