Media Review: Roundtable on WMSP

Josh Moon has the intellect for television, a face for the radio, and a voice for the newspaper. In other words, he shouldn’t be part of the Alabama media. He’s a joke. A Finebaum wannabe that fails. He’d have to improve significantly to be called a hack.

Of course in the modern media environment where any moron can run a website (hey, even I can run one!), and broadcast outlets have a 24-hour news cycle, it is no surprise a serial provocateur like Moon would get attention.

Today, the guy who yells the loudest gets a show.

And so Montgomery’s WMSP AM 740 features Doug Amos and Josh Moon from noon until 2 p.m. The Roundtable in Montgomery is a shadow of the Roundtable in Birmingham. The Roundtable in Birmingham is at least entertaining.

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On Wednesday’s Montgomery Roundtable, the entire show featured a debate between Amos and Moon over which sport is most popular: baseball or NASCAR.

Moon picked NASCAR.

Dumbass.

Everyone with a brain would know baseball is far more popular than NASCAR. All you have to do is look at the scientific poll data taken by Harris and released in February 2008. The data indicates Baseball is 50-percent more popular than auto racing (all circuits including NASCAR, Indy, etc.)

Adults were asked this question: “If you had to choose, which ONE of these sports would you say is your favorite?”

The responses were:
Pro football 30%
baseball 15%
college football 12%
auto racing 10%

According to Harris:

The survey also finds some sizable differences between different segments of the population:
• Pro football is most popular among those with household incomes of $50,000 to under $75,000 (39%), among those ages 25-29 (37%) and 65 and older (35%) and Easterners (34%). Hispanics (20%) and those with a post graduate education (23%) are least likely to call football their favorite sport;
• Baseball is most popular among Easterners (21%), those aged 30-39 (21%) and Democrats (20%). Southerners (8%) and those aged 65 and older (9%) are least likely to say baseball is their favorite sport;
• College football is particularly popular among those with a college degree (22%) and Southerners (20%). Just three percent of those who live in the East cite college football as their favorite sport;
• Auto racing (which includes NASCAR) is most popular among those aged 30-39 (14%), Southerners (13%) and Conservatives (13%), while it fares worst among Hispanics (1%), and those aged 18-24 (4%).

Anyway Moon and his supporters, aptly named “Moon’s Morons” by a caller, wasted an entire show discussing this useless topic. It made Colin Cowherd’s show topics seem relevant.

Talk radio can include useless debates, but at least make them about something interesting. Why not make the debate over which sport people in Alabama prefer? That would be harder to verify using independent sourcing—and could provide interesting asides into the legends of NASCAR and baseball from Alabama. You could even talk about minor league baseball in small towns.

But the Roundtable isn’t about anything worth hearing. It is just a venue for Moon to raise his voice and bluster. The only good thing you could say about this show is that Seth Harp of Huntsville might not be the worst talk show host in the state.