The conservatives are coming! The conservatives are coming!

At least that was the message in a June 22 Boston Globe story, Conservative media outlets see a market in Mass. This could be good news; but probably not.

I confess that when I first saw the headline I thought of the possibilities. I was reflecting on my old friend Jim Ward’s Conservative Political Thought syllabus. Then I re-read the headline and focused on the words “media” and “market” and realized Boston won’t be getting Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, or Edmund Burke. We’ll be getting The Outrage Industry.

As Tufts University scholars Jeff Berry and Sarah Sobieraj argue in their book The Outrage Industry: Public Opinion Media and the New Incivility, conservative talk radio is dependent on as much ire as can be generated in a given program. Bombast, invective, and ad hominem slander are the regular tools of the trade. Conservatives dominate the medium; though liberals can be just as shocking and conspiracy-minded, liberal talk radio has never caught on as has the conservative version.

Talk radio is a profit generating business, not a place for rational political discussion. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh exist not to generate thinking, but advertising dollars. One of the proposed stations, WKOX-AM, will be offering the usual dreary lineup of angry white males: Rush, Beck, Sean Hannity, etc. WMEX promises more moderation, “common sense and a little laughter.” It has a Boston Herald flavor, with the Herald’s “Morning Meeting” featuring Jaclyn Cashman and Hillary Chabot, and Michelle McPhee later in the day. (The station promises angry white males too). The question is, can common sense (would someone define this for me please) attract the sort of ratings that vitriol does?

A new online newspaper, The New Boston Post which promises to “appeal to a   common patriotic spirit,” has already debuted, so check it out. I consider myself to be pretty patriotic, so we’ll see. However, I’m not as optimistic as I was when I let my thoughts drift toward Professor Ward’s Conservative Political Thought syllabus. As Professor’s Berry and Sobieraj remind us in The Outrage Industry, though Hitler, fascists, and racists are not common in the general population, outrage media sees them everywhere.