His Job is to Stimulate

"The fact of the matter is that it is not John Ziegler’s job to be responsible, or nuanced, or to think about whether his on-air comments are productive or dangerous, or cogent, or even defensible. That is not to say that the host would not defend his “we’re better”—strenuously—or that he does not believe it’s true. It is to say that he has exactly one on-air job, and that is to be stimulating." -Foster

As I discussed in my previous post, John Ziegler's job as a radio host is to be stimulating and to incite debate and controversy. As Foster describes, it is not his job to be a journalist and comply with the rules of fairness and responsibility, and it is not his job to merely discuss the day's events and give an unbiased account of what happened. Ziegler's job as a good host is to captivate his audience with heated and opinionated claims about controversial topics. Being a talk show host is a job, it's a business, and you are not going to make money if your host simply discusses what has happened. If people want a daily account of the world's events then they can watch the news.

Besides that fact that Ziegler has to talk for about 40 minutes, he seems to have a pretty easy job. And what I mean by easy it that he doesn't have to mince his words since his show is based around his opinions. He doesn't have to worry about losing his job or infuriating his bosses; he simply has to speak into his microphone with the ease of mind knowing that he doesn't have to think about censoring his speech. Many talk radio hosts have been fired (including Ziegler) for inciting gossip and controversy, but it must be a comforting thought for Ziegler knowing that this is his show, and that what he says goes, and his show certainly benefits from this.