Dori monson punked: newsmax's phony-baloney 'top 25 list'

A reader dared us to post about Dori Monson's "award" last week.

We'd got a press release for Newsmax magazine's Top 25 Local Radio Hosts or "little Limbaughs." It asked breathlessly: "So who’s the Hannity of Houston, the Savage of Seattle, or the Limbaugh of Los Angeles? Newsmax decided to find out."

(Photo: "So who's got a girl's name, now?")

KIROFM's Dave Ross (m-f,9-12) and Dori Monson (m-f,12-3) were both listed. There's a Top 25 list for national hosts too.

The award is less than meaningless; in part, it's a marketing tactic that ropes talk hosts in by feeding their famously tumescent egos.

 NM is a fledgling magazine trying to get free air-time in radio markets. Besides the namedropping Top 25 lists to snare needy talk hosts into their marketing plans, they're saturating night times on right-wing stations like KVI with heavy-handed ads -- subscribe now and get your free, hand-crank emergency radio before the Obamageddon kicks in!

NewsMax.com, the web site is a grimy, far-right, oft-discredited, sensationalistic -- arguably the most-read (not counting Drudge) in the right-wing movement minicosm.

Newsmax, the print magazine strains to be mainstream. With writers like Dick Morris, Laura Ingraham, John Stossel, and Martin Buber. It's based in West Palm Beach (Rush's home) and is said to be an attempt to replace the faltering conservative National Review.

(We also ignored the list because, hell, we're busy! We 're up to here with our own meaningless, ego-enhancing crap. But then Dori had to start flapping his wings and strutting around the coop. And... we got dared. Sadly we fell once again to the temptation to wamp on Dori... an immature  pastime which not only gets us off, but also lots of traffic).

(photo: Dave in summer)

Newsmax measured each host on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most conservative. Astoundingly, Dave got a five, Dori got a 6. That's just the first problem with this. (Dori, like Billo Reilly, claims to be neither right nor left.... just pissed off. Maybe he should be measured on the Scoville scale). That they would be just a point apart is laughable. Has the author John Mainelli actually listened to these guys?

Mainelli's resumé is a little speckled. He's been a program director for stations all over the country, and done some consulting, but most of his google hits are from when he was fired from the tabloid NY Post after he allegedly made up stuff about Howard Stern in 2006. There might be something there... you got to be pretty bad to be canned by The Post.

The magazine's casual relationship with factuality is shown in the error-studded, ungrammatical on-line list of Top 25 national radio hosts (presumably, the "Big Limbaughs") dated today.

• Billo Reilly is number 2. (As unintentionally poetic as that is, Billo's been off the radio for months).
• Al Franken is listed as the brightest star of Air America, and "America's tenth most influential in America." [sic]. (Franken left radio in 2006 to run for the Senate).
• Randi Rhodes is the main "hit man" at Air America Radio. (She left AAR in 2008, and radio in February, '09).
• Michael Reagan is "America's 23rd most influential in America." [sic] (Reagan has no significan national syndication; is unmeasurable in any ratings scheme, and is influential only to his immediate family ).
  

Dori doesn't usually get awards -- he's got a couple of Best Dad In The World cups; a GutterHelmet Achiever certificate; and a "Soundie" he found on the street after a PSRBA  banquet.

Dave Ross, who only acknowledged this honor when Dori brought it up when they were on-air together, gets real national recognition such as the 2001 and 2005 Edward R. Murrow Awards, and a Marconi nomination.

Unlike KVI's Kirby Wilbur (KVI m-f, 5-9a) neither Dori nor Dave appear in most common (and equally flawed) metric of national radio whoozhootitude: Talker's magazine Heavy Hundred. (Kirby is #72).

Newsmax media is the spawn of Christopher Ruddy, a nutter entrepreneur who's been funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and others over the years. He tried to cash in with the goofie right with his Vince-Foster-was-murdered plot.

Ruddy and his crew are known for pulling stuff out of their collective fundament -- Media Matters calls the magazine "a monthly publication with a history of publishing baseless conspiracy theories about Democrats."

Newsmax famously went balls-out with the rectally-acquired Obama madrassa story, and was thoroughly, humiliatingly debunked. In another fiasco, they accused Hillary Clinton of refusing to meet with Gold Star Mothers -- another ass-sourced story.

To oppose the Immigration Bill in 2007, they spread the apocryphal fright tale of a proposed "North American Union," that would knock out the borders between the US, Canada, and Mexico to create a giant nation where "NAU citizens no longer spend dollars or salute Old Glory." The dollar would become the "amero."

The list and judgment of who's at the "Top" in all the land was in the hands of John Mainelli, That it was based on anything more substantial (polling, ratings, expert interviews, etc) is never claimed.

This list is nothing more than gee-whiz vanity advertising of fodder of a dubious publication.

Comments

[sparky]

What an excellent way to start my day! Great article.

[jaonie]

Dori Monson and Dave Ross need no recognition from this rag, they are and will continue to be the dominating talk show hosts in this area. Why? Because they have talent to entertain, each in their own separate way. And commanding ratings and audience is about entertaining. One can entertain (as Ross does) with fact, reason and intelligence, or one can entertain (as Dori does) through provacation and controversy.
As someone said before the biggest fear of an entertainer is being ignored as irrelevant. These two don't fit that mold.

[Upton]

Dave Ross is okay, if I could listen to him, but seeing as how KIRO has told longtime listeners in Lewis Co. such as myself to go screw themselves.. I'm not sure I'm even going to cater to them and stream his show anymore.

As for Monson...he's nothing but a right wing punk.

[RobP]

Well put, jaonie.

For that matter any of these self-aggrandizing "awards" - including Murrows and the "NAB Crystal Awards" - don't mean a hill o'beans. But they make great fodder for the blogosphere.

[YellowPup]

Martin Buber, Hasidic theologian and philosopher (1878-1965) writes for Newsmax? Wha?

[Mark C.]

Newsmax is the news "paper" of record for righties seeking news to agree with. They have been debunked more times than the Shroud of Turin.

[joanie]

Awards? People celebrating themselves. I don't even watch my teenage beloved Academy Awards anymore. Who cares?

[KS]

"Media Matters calls the magazine "a monthly publication with a history of publishing baseless conspiracy theories about Democrats."

Now there's a source you can really rely on. In reciprocal "fairness", Newsmax calls Media Matters a publication with a history of publishing baseless conspiracy theories about Conservatives and Moderates. Just sayin.

[Tigsnort]

KS - you obvously don't know enough about Newsmax and/or Media Matters to compare the two. Newsmax publishes slanted, editorialized "news", Media Matters publishes unedited video, audio and transcripts in an effort to illuminate facts (although admittedly it's from a left wing viewpoint) - the two approaches are completely different. Please refrain from this obsessive need to "equate" bad stuff on the right to things on the left. It isn't convincing, and it's such an old, tired tactic.

[KS]

Tig - you are not familiar with those publications either, OR you are and you are gullible, naive and/ or ignorant and sound like a progressive kool-aid drinker. As for the video, audio and transcripts that Media Matters puts out there - much of it is propaganda and half truths. I don't accept a portion of the stuff that Newsmax writes and thought George W Bush was a bad and fairly corrupt president.

"Newsmax publishes slanted, editorialized "news",

And Media Matters doesn't with their videos, audios and transcripts. WTF ? There is a slant to both publications due to politics. Just because the webmaster is taken in by Media Matters stuff does not mean that everyone else who blogs here is.

"Please refrain from this obsessive need to "equate" bad stuff on the right to things on the left."

No problem, I'll just say that from my experience reading both; Newsmax is more credible than Media Matters, Daily KOS and the Huffington Post. Newsmax is less devious than them, but also to be taken with a grain of salt. Tired tactic ? How Ph(J)oanie of you to say that.

[joanie]

Has anyone called you an imbecile lately, Klueless?

[Tommy008]

now comes the chilling and disturbing video of Obama bowing deeply to the piece of shit that calls himself the Saudi King, just as i was defending Obama with my Repug greedy stock market shorting neighbor By the way I'm pleased to report that after gaining about 1.6 million last fall and early winter he ignored the advice of several of us to not get greedy and promptly pissed away about 800,000 of those gains in a month or so by foolishly continueing to trade his entire fortune in his highrisk/reward 2 times % account instead of quitting while he was ahead.. Repug greed knows no bounds

[KS]

Hit a nerve- eh ... Ph(J)oanie - you crack me up !

[KS]

Phil Hendrie has a corny schtick with his character imitations, but he is one of the few moderate talk shows on the radio who has a reasonable perspective. He interviews both left and right, such as the Chief of the Daily Kos followed by the group for a Fair tax. He found flaws in both of their arguments - agreed with them to disagree and they seemed reasoned out. He says that he neither liberal or conservative - he voted for Obama, but respected Bush as President (which I don't really get).

I liked when he interviewed Arianna Huffington about her new book. He disagreed with some of her premises and she became arrogant about it. Then she called him an idiot and a moron because he had accused her of fabricating a portion of her book, which was apparent to anyone who cares about the truth, told her that he wasn't going to listen to her name calling and terminated the interview. He handled it well and I gained more respect for him in doing interviews.

[sparky]

A special Chair for Dori and his Kilt