We Can Hardly Wait

The truly execrable Mike Fleming is touting a "very special guest" on his Wednesday radio show (3 - 7PM) on AM600. Talking about Senator Curtis Person's call for a complete accounting of all State assets, Fleming claims he will have a "special guest" who will "name names." Fleming claims that when he asked this guest if the State had $4.7 billion in idle assets, the person said, "It's more than that."

Our hopes are not high for this interview. Fleming is not noted for intellectual depth nor real doggedness in his interviews. He talks a good game when alone, but he often becomes deferential and superficial when interviewing. Fleming has already had several callers (Half-Bakered included) point him to the State's CAFR, where he could easily do some of his own research. Based on comments to this point, he does not appear to have done so, nor seem interested in doing so.

Allow us to take a few paragraphs at this time to comment on Mike Fleming. At one time, on a different local radio station, he went by the nickname "Napalm Mike." ("Like napalm in your coffee" was his tagline.) Today, it's "Fleming & Company." We did not hear him in the "Napalm" days, but do not hold him in high regard today. Especially compared to Nashville radio talkers like Phil Valentine and Steve Gill, he can be safely called a lightweight. It is regretable that he generally wastes such an important platform.

He embodies many of the worst stereotypes of talk radio. His daily menu is usually the outrage du jour. He will take whatever is the topic of the day--always something emotional and controversial--and riff on it for the first 30-45 minutes of his show, working up a good lather of moral outrage. His vocabulary is peppered with words like stupid, liberal, garbage, animals, unbelievable, outrageous, idiots, etc. He will frequently say something very like, "I think it's the most outrageous/stupid/unbelievable/idiotic thing I've ever heard and you can't change my mind. But you're welcome to try at 545-WREC." You get the idea--work the outrage of the listeners and gin up the calls.

He has the distracting habit of quoting unnamed people who "tell" him things, usually political, civic or media insiders. The information is often of the interesting variety, as when he mentioned that several people had told him Governor Sundquist discussed the need for an income tax up to nine months before his infamous State of the State address. I've never seen this anywhere else, nor has Fleming ever discussed this startling revelation with any depth since. These things pop up from nowhere and can often disappear as quickly.

Rather than debate or confront folks with difficult ideas, he will often cut them off, sometimes pretending the call never happened. He will also pick hapless, defenseless callers to rail against, to puff up his reputation as a tough guy. Fleming has the distressing tendency to talk in absolutes, things being the worst, most, -est, etc. It is polarising, of course, and a cheap rhetorical trick.

During the tax and budget debates his own stance could be difficult to infer. When asked, point blank, if he opposed an income tax, Fleming said he opposed higher taxes. Note that he didn't answer the question asked! Also, he has repeatedly referred to House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh as his "good friend," a status confirmed when, during the heat of the income tax battles, the day after Naifeh referred to talk radio hosts as scum and the lowest form of life, Naifeh called Fleming to specifically exempt him from that description! Fleming was also the only radio broadcaster allowed to broadcast live from his 2002 Coon Supper, but never broadcast from Nashville during the budget battles.

Fleming is one of only three radio call-in show hosts who regularly addresses community and political issues. One is Andrew Clark, Sr., who is also on WREC, on Sunday afternoons. He is an older black conservative whose viewpoint is not of the black orthodoxy. He is a calm, reasonable voice. The other is WDIA's Bobby O'Jay. Bobby's show tends more toward the personal and the black-cultural, as summed up in "Bobby-ology," his philosophy on life and the black experience. He is serious in his way and clearly a man who spends time thinking things through. He also takes a much higher number of callers than his WREC counterparts, which makes for a great way to get a good view into the Memphis black community. Janice Fullilove also had a WDIA call-in show, but gave it up to run for County Register. Fullilove would sometimes be paired with Fleming in "Point/Counterpoint"-type arguments on ABC24 News, to the expected disastrous results. They would shout over each other in soundbites, accomplishing little.

Finally, we must admit that Fleming's voice itself often makes him hard to listen to. When he gets worked up, as he regularly does, his tenor rises and rises to a nasal squeak that hurts our ears. Although we make real efforts to listen to his show, to catch important news that other media outlets in Memphis may ignore, we have rarely been able to listen for more than an hour or ninety minutes. It's just too painful, and now we're not talking about his voice.

Until next time, that is all.