Bucks
Michael Smerconish – Part One
Dear Friends,
Good morning. I’ve been corresponding with Michael Smerconish for some time. While I’ve searched far and wide, Smerconish is the only talk radio host whose views are similar to my own. With the exception of National Public Radio, the usual talk radio crowd boils down to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobb. And in my opinion, that’s wearisome fare.
Smerconish’s
roots lie deep in
You see Smerconish on national TV newscasts. With his moderate political views, he’s often interviewed on national and cable networks. Mighty Betsy and I watched him on WNBC last Thursday night, after my time with him in the morning. He was wearing a Philadelphia Phillies shirt.
After I read Smerconish’s book,
“Morning Drive,” I thought an interview would be timely. Following my morning
row one day last week, I found him in his lair on
Smerconish is 47…athletic looking,
shaved head, graying beard, and piercing eyes. With a staff of just three, he
runs two, three hour shows daily and writes two separate columns weekly for the
Inquirer and the Daily News. Smerconish is heard in 54 markets across
During the three hours that I spent
with him, either listening to him on the radio or shadowing him in his studio,
Smerconish interviewed seven people with very diverse backgrounds. From a pole
dance entrepreneur in
He’s an avid reader with a journalist’s curiosity and is fortunate to have boundless energy. Besides the interviews, he taped four commercials; met with an advertiser who wanted to buy time on his program; and prepared promos for the next day. During the three hours, Smerconish ate one bagel and took no bathroom breaks. He must have a cast iron bladder.
One of his staff is the producer. Tall and good-looking, T.C. Scornavacchi lines up interviews and tapes every word Smerconish utters. During her college days, Scornavacchi rowed for the Harvard women’s crew. Smerconish discovered her at a Montessori school, which his children attended. She was an assistant teacher. It was she who at the end of a hectic morning…which Smerconish calls organized chaos…said wryly, “Michael, you’re dismissed!”
But not for long. That night, Smerconish was one of the guests on Chris Mathews’ TV show, “Hardball” on WNBC.
Greg Stocker and John McDonald complete Smerconish’s staff. Although they’re only in their twenties, they solve all technical problems and are writers as well. Stocker, McDonald, and T.C. keep Smerconish on the move. It’s a killer pace.
I was fascinated with one of his interviews because it led into education, one of my favorite topics. Dr. Pamela Stone is a sociologist at Hunter College. One of her research projects addressed stay-at-home moms. Stone claims that 25 percent of all married women do not work but stay at home to raise their children. Is that because professional women are opting to leave their careers, Smerconish asked?
“Partially,” Stone replied. Yes, there are some professional women who abandon their careers, she added. But mostly, stay-at-home moms are poor women, mainly Hispanic, who can’t afford day care.
And then Stone launched into a significant observation. She told Smerconish that if the school day and the teaching year were longer, two problems would be addressed. First, poor women would have the time to work out side of the home. And second, children would be in school longer and learn more.
“It would be a boon to America if the schools ran longer,” Stone said. In urban schools, 50 percent of the children don’t graduate and are ill prepared to be productive. And those who do [graduate] don’t measure up to the Asian and European competition because American kids receive 180 teaching days each year compared to their foreign peers who get 240 [days].
America’s public schools still run on the Agricultural economy of the1800’s, where school children were needed to care for and harvest crops during the summer months. You can understand why Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, says that American public education is broken.
The conversation with Stone led directly to Smerconish’s observation about the visit to Philadelphia’s schools by the U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Those three are touring America to learn what can be done for America to catch up to the rest of the industrialized world.
Friends, let us pray!!
I’ll close with a typical Smerconish move on the radio checkerboard. As I drove to his studio, I listened to a five-minute interview with Dr. Arthur Caplan, the Bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. Smerconish was asking his audience to comment on a Florida Democratic Congressman who claimed that the GOP’s version of health care was “to die quickly if they get sick.” Congressman Alan Grayson was referring to a Harvard study, which stated that 44,000 Americans die each year because of the lack of health insurance.
Smerconish asked Caplan for his observations and then predicted that Congressman Grayson would attract $375,000 in contributions from liberals within days. My guess is that Grayson will do as well as Congressman Joe Wilson. It was that Republican- Congressman from South Carolina who yelled, “You lie,” at President Obama during his speech in the nation’s capital. Within days, Wilson received close to a million dollars from conservatives.
Next week,
I’ll share more of my hours with Michael Smerconish and the fast-paced action
he gives to his audience. You can call his program at
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith