During my designated lunch period today, I took the opportunity to head over to my favorite woodworking shop to peruse their selection of hardwoods [it's always nice to know what materials are available locally] and to drool over bigger and better power tools than I already have in my garage.

While there, I noticed that the local talk radio station, 680 WPTF, had set up a remote outside a computer store located in the same strip mall, so I wandered over there to see if I could perhaps cadge a nifty logo-ized pen or something along those lines.

Free stuff == good.

Lo and behold, the radio personality on the scene was none other than the local after-Limbaugh personality, Bill LuMaye. Not having spoken face-to-face with a radio personality of any sort since 1979 ["The Baron" Ron Herron, then of 1340 KIST in Santa Barbara and still a big wheel in town there], I decided to step up and have a word.

With a certain answer in mind, I asked him what he did for his "show prep." He told me he reads the local papers (it is, after all, a local show) and mentioned several national publications. I kept waiting for it, but one particular word never passed his lips.

"Blog."

Naturally, I took it upon myself to enlighten him. He was skeptical of the reliability of blogs — as perhaps anyone would be wise to be, not knowing how the feedback loop works — but was interested enough to listen to my recommendations: Instapundit as an example of a linker, Power Line for analysis, Emperor Misha for sheer invective, and Bill Whittle as an essayist. I also recommended NRO and OpinionJournal.

No, I didn't give him my address. Call me humble. But I did give him the URL for GOPbloggers — that's as close as I come to shameless self-promotion these days.

I wrote down the short list of URLs and handed it to him; he said he'd look them over when he had a chance. I'll take him at his word.

But I do have to wonder... how is it that a talk show host of any kind could not read blogs as a source of (or pointers to) material?

Posted by Russ at 06:02 PM, February 18, 2005 in Bloggery