"CNN anchors reporting they are getting tons of emails telling them about Ryan's lies."

[calimary]

12. Must have been an avalanche if they felt compelled to mention it.

Wonder if they're finally realizing that at least some of us are keeping track?

And maybe they're looking at all those emails and extrapolating out what they might mean, numerically. And believe me, those numbers talk. Loudly. When I was in radio, even a SINGLE comment on the request line was carefully noted. Listener guidance and feedback mattered a lot. Depending on the size of the market, one request on the request line might be representative of at least ten, or maybe 100, or a thousand, or more - sometimes MUCH more. The idea being - if ONE person calls in, that means there's at least X number more people who feel the same way, only they're too busy to call in, or they forget to, or they think it doesn't make any difference so why bother.

I haven't told this story in a long time and there are quite a few new folks here, so let me offer this personal testament. I worked at a big station where program directors were changed almost as often as underwear. That always made for lots of firings. VERY unstable time at that place. Since it was a rock station, my part of the on-air presentation (morning and noon news breaks) wasn't exactly regarded as essential programming. And anything considered non-essential was usually not long for this world.

Arbitron was the main ratings service at that time (back in the late 70s - way before the People Meters and such). People would fill out "diaries" of their listening preferences, on paper by hand, regarding when and for how long, for a given time frame. Arbitron had this extra service called the "ARB Talkback," in which it wasn't simply about numbers of listeners but what they SAID in those "diaries." There was room for comment. In this particular "book," somebody wrote a comment saying "entertaining morning news with 'calimary'." The people who got these "diaries" to fill out were random people, completely anonymous, and nobody anyone knew or could be put up to it. There wasn't any way to cheat. I have no idea who wrote that comment, but when the station got all these stats, these sheets always got passed around all over the building within minutes, and everybody soon knew that - out of all the dayparts and well-known jocks and slogans and jingles and playing the hits, it was their little morning news-chick who'd been singled out, by name, for praise in the all-important holier-than-holy "ARB Talkback" this time.

It was ONE mention. And that ONE mention saved my job for a year.