Nightside to dark side
The Senate Republican majority has expanded its growing propaganda ministry with the addition of a former KSL talk show host who gained great credibility in Utah. Michael Castner will broadcast daily podcasts from the upcoming Legislature.Castner was a rising star at KSL-Radio with the Nightside Project. He made the show edgy and took it from 12th place to first -- apparently grounds for firing at Utah's Church-owned media behemoth.
KSL said Castner was dumped as part of a cost-cutting move -- nothing to do with the program's young, feisty tone.
"He will tell the Senate's story through his eyes," says Senate chief of staff, Ric Cantrell, who seems to confuse the concepts of "Senate majority" and "Senate" (understandable with only 8 Democrats),
"He's like a reporter who is imbedded with a battalion in Iraq," Cantrell told Crawler.
Senate leadership hasn't decided how Castner will describe himself in the podcasts. "Spokesman?" "Communications consultant?" "Senate spinmeister?"
The Republican Senate majority will pay Castner $5,000 for the 45-day gig. Much of the GOP majority's interaction with the media is through its House and Senate staff chiefs in the House and Senate, who pull down $200,000 annually between them.
Cantrell doesn't see anything unsavory about the Senate trading on Castner's credibility as a tough radio journalist to push its political agenda.
"He'll enhance the reporting on the Senate," he said. "People will hear all sides before making their judgment."
3 Comments:
Nice jab with the "church-owned" phrase. That adjective has absolutely no relevance to your post, nor to KSL's decision. My understanding is that Nightside was given a certain amount of time to start being profitable. Obviously, if the program was losing money, cuts were going to be inevitable.
I think your comments are unfair towards the House and Senate. 20 years ago the Tribune had maybe 2 reporters that covered Capitol Hill.
Now in the 1440 minute news cycle where more reporters cover different stories relating to the Legislature and big media demands instant coverage of events, you can't possibly assume that part time Reps and Senators can answer every call from the press that they receive.
My two cents.
Thanks for the mention, GW. This session will be interesting. It might even be fun. Castner can put government in plain English for podcast listeners. He won't be the spokesman, but he can record his observations and conversations with people - D and R - so folks have one more way of understanding what is really going on at the Capitol.
Plus, there's the untapped universe of Web 2.0 potential for government that we have only begun to explore. Castner is throwing out ideas like lightning. We're sprinting to keep up.
We'll benefit from his energy and candlepower, at the same time he'll gain an unmatched education on the process from the inside. Which could serve him well in his next gig.
The outcome is that more people will become actively, intelligently, anxiously engaged in the Government for which they are accountable. That's the end game. Hope it works.
RC
P.S. to "Fmr Intern" - it may be a different media world than it was years ago, but we still try to respond to every reporter who calls. Web 2.0 can add perspective to the MSM, but can't replace it yet, and we wouldn't want it to.
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