Alan Colmes: Breathing fresh air into late nights
Alan Colmes joined the Fox News stable in 1996 as the liberal co-host of Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." Since then, in 2003, he took his very experienced talk radio voice national with a newsdriven late-night talker syndicated by Fox News Radio, "The Alan Colmes Show." Here, Alan talks about America, the media and a bit about his particular brand of late night radio (from our September and October RBR/TVBR Solutions Magazine).
If you were to change anything right now about our government or suggest change what would it be?
I'd have them tell the truth. On second thought if they did that it would be less fun to play around with them and play sound bites that have Scott McClellan for example saying that anyone involved in a leak will get the axe. Another one where the axe goes to anyone who leaks classified information. And a third clip where the President says you have to break the law before you'll fire anybody. So on one hand, you know, I'd like them to tell the truth and I'd like there be less hypocrisy because the same people defending this administration went after Clinton and called him a liar. And this President has obfuscated, tap-danced through his spokesperson and personally. I just would like to see the same standards applied, to whether you're left or right. I thought what Clinton did was wrong but I didn't think it rose to the level of impeachment.
Now I know there are people on the far left who want to impeach Bush. I don't think that's going to happen and it's a big waste of time and money but I do think they should be held to the standard they promised us. Yet they play the same games once they get into power as everybody else and for two years we heard, you know, nobody in the White House had anything to do with leaking this Valerie Plame stuff and now we find out this is just not true.
Do you think the mainstream media should still be considered liberal?
I don't know what the mainstream media is anymore because it's changing at a rapid pace. I always blanch when I hear the media defined as liberal because the media is like a pipeline, it's a vessel through which information comes. Now some of that information is liberal, some of it's conservative.
The Wall Street Journal is one of the biggest papers, are they liberal? No, they're conservative. I think the media, the big networks, are pretty much owned by big corporations and are big corporate interests. I don't think they're all that liberal. I think the media is basically middle of the road to right for the most part. I know the media did a lousy job of the run-up to the war, basically promoting the idea of war. The New York Times did a mea culpa and said, "You know, yeah we relied on some bad sources like
Achmed Chalabi on the run up to the war with Iraq," and you had people like Judith Miller writing basically pro-administration pieces for the "Liberal New York Times" and now she's in jail defending a source - - probably defending a source in the White House. So this idea, the media is so liberal when you've got a New York Times reporter in jail protecting a Republican - - probably a Republican White House source - - is ludicrous.
Tell us what you consider unique about your radio show.
I think what we're able to do is get top level guests in a daypart that isn't necessarily known to get day-level guests. We do breaking news when we can, being we have the resources of the Fox News Channel.
We're bringing the interesting, the unusual and the topical. We do the news of the day, we also had a guy on who has a helmet that protects him from aliens. We try to find the angles on the news stories that nobody else is doing. We bill ourselves also as the most interactive radio show on the planet. We take a huge number of calls in a very fast pace to get as many different opinions on the air as possible. I think we can't ever forget that this is an entertainment medium and our goal is to get as big an audience as possible, to satisfy our viewers, our listeners, our advertisers and in radio, our affiliates. My goal is to entertain, I'm a radio broadcaster who happens to be liberal, not the other way around. I don't lead with my agenda.
What are your show's biggest advertisers?
On the radio side we have Bayer, Glaxo Smith-Kline, GEICO, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Priceline. We have the National Association of Realtors. I'll do live reads for clients, I'll go visit clients.
Dial-Global does our advertising. I'm in touch with them. I've gone to some of their presentations. I'm at the beck and call of our salespeople whenever they want me. I call my affiliates, I speak to them, I ask them what their needs are.
Who is your favorite guest on the radio side?
Well the guy with the alien protection helmet certainly was among my favorites. I loved, for example, I flew out to North Carolina and did (which we used on radio and television) a sit-down with John Edwards after the campaign was over. Bill Clinton; I did the show when his book came out.
He's always a great interview because he's always got great things to say and he's not hard to draw out. My favorite guests span the gamut from top name newsmakers to somebody who thinks he's just visiting here from Venus. I mean if it's something that people are either talking about because it's in the news, just fascinating, or somebody who thinks that 9-11 was a big government conspiracy and Bush knew ahead of time.
Was the 9-11 guy Alex Jones, the radio host that's been on George Noory's show a bunch of times?
I've had Alex Jones on the show. I think he's very entertaining. I don't agree with him. I was put in the odd position of defending the Bush Administration! There were too many people who would have had to be involved that someone would have blown the whistle. I mean we have whistle blowers in the FBI like Cynthia Rowley who was on the show recently, who's now running for Congress. It's ludicrous on the surface, but yet when people hear these conspiracy theories their ears perk up and our phones are as busy for that as for any other topic we do.
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