Shock jocks and midnight to dawn politics

Merle is 67, a widow with grown up children living their own lives and has been retired for two years. While she leads a busy life during the day she gets very lonely at night and has trouble sleeping. Listening to radio was a great help until her favorite presenter was replaced with a political shock jock.

"At first I was very disappointed when I lost my favorite presenter," explains Merle, "but rather than drifting off to sleep before 1am, I soon found myself becoming so interested in the issues raised by the new presenter – and the diverse views of his callers - that sometimes the sleep button got pressed several times. My insomnia became chronic!"

"The new presenter was conditioning me - like a rat - to stay awake and listen to him,” laughs Merle. “I was becoming a political junkie!”

"My sleep time was cut from 7 hours to 6 hours, sometimes much less," sighs Merle. "I didn't want to miss what everybody had to say. Rather than putting me to sleep, the radio was now making my sleep problem worse."

"Looking back, I think most of the interesting calls were made by stooges," sighs Merle. "I think the radio station wanted to boost ratings and that's how it did it. It got rid of my favorite presenter - the one whose soft voice and music used to lull me to sleep - and replaced him with a new political shock jock who woke everyone up!"

"After a while all the interesting callers started calling later and later - or they didn't call at all," explains Merle. "I'd stay awake until 2am, sometimes 3am, waiting for them to call and when they didn't I suffered real deprivation."

"Apparently, the presenter suffered deprivation too," sighs Merle. "Without articulate, interesting callers, his show sunk to the pits and so did his behavior."

"My rat conditioning came undone the night this shock jock humiliated a simple-minded caller."

"The caller's simple ideologies were definitely a waste of (air) space - and the presenter had every right to disagree with him," explains Merle, "but I was shocked when the presenter interrogated this poor guy about his private life - calling him an unemployed loser and a waste of space - and then encouraged him to jump off a cliff."

"Bearing in mind that the majority of people with the luxury of time to listen to midnight to dawn shows would be losers of one type of another - either on unemployment, disability or just lonely old people like me," sighs Merle, "I wondered how many listeners were as shocked as I was and thinking what I was thinking."

"I had never heard this presenter interrogate any of his regular callers about their private lives in the same manner that he interrogated that hapless caller," says Merle, "but if he did, he might have to tell them that they're a waste of space, too."

"After that call, a lot of people called in to protest," says Merle, "and the presenter was thriving with all the attention. It was pretty obvious to me that he had torn into that guy deliberately. He used that poor, simple-minded caller as a political pawn in order to gain calls and boost the station's ratings."

"There's enough division and uncaring behavior in our society without someone in a position of influence - like that presenter - teaching others to behave badly towards the unfortunate," says Merle, "and I deeply resented being placed in a situation - especially in the early hours of the morning - where I had to witness, be party to, someone's humiliation."

"It's not in my nature to stand by and allow someone to bully or otherwise humiliate or hurt another," says Merle, "but I wasn't going to fall into the trap of calling to protest. That's what the presenter wanted his listeners to do."

"For all I know," sighs Merle, "that hapless caller was a stooge, too."

"I listen to this particular radio station in the evenings because I don't want the 'shock jock' experience that you get on other radio stations," says Merle. "I guess it's time to find a new radio station or a new way to get to sleep at nights."

"I worry that all radio stations are going down the same route," says Merle. "It's all ratings and profit now. Few of them are interested in entertaining and informing listeners any more - or performing the important role of keeping lonely people company at nights, even if it is just to help them get to sleep."

"Even the advertisements are designed to wake you up," laughs Merle. "They are placed at twice the volume of the presenter's voice."

"It wouldn't surprise me if radio itself becomes a waste of space," sighs Merle. "It's nice listening to real-time human voices at night, but I can do without mega-volume advertisements and political shock jocks and I think a lot of other people - especially older people like me - are thinking the same thing."

"The whole purpose of retirement is to kick back and wind down and the last thing I want is to be wound up by some shock jock at some unearthly hour in the morning."