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Encounter with Laura Ingraham

Warring With the Media Elite

Is there room on the radio dial for another brash conservative voice?

Globe Staff Photo / Matthew J. Lee

When you started out as a TV commentator, you were often described as a "foxy conservative infobabe." Was that a blessing or a curse?

I'm trying to ignore the positives and the negatives of that. When I was on TV � MSNBC --it was, "Oh, she's on television because she's a blonde." But now that I'm on radio, where do they go with that? It's so tedious --expressions like "pundette." It shows how lazy journalists are, recycling the same phrases. [The Laura Ingraham Show airs on 290 stations, including Boston's WTKK, 96.9 FM.]

What have you learned about radio in the two years your show has been on?

That I don't want to make a cookie-cutter conservative talk show. I've learned to be me. If I get mad at my staff, I don't hesitate to get into it on the air. They yell at me, too. The idea is that we will become familiar friends to the people who listen in.

You just had a bit that featured Janet Reno as Chewbacca. Is talk radio a blood sport?

That's just supposed to be funny, like National Lampoon humor. I've had that in me since I wrote for The Dartmouth Review in college. Look at the way Saturday Night Live mocked Gerald Ford with Chevy Chase falling down.

What could liberals learn from conservative radio hosts?

They have to realize that the people who listen to radio now are the people who think liberals are waging war against them. Middle America is the talk-radio audience, and the heartland is all Bush country. What are you going to say to those people to get them persuaded, or excited, or amused? Making fun of [George W.] Bush for being dumb --I don't think that's going to work on the radio.

You lambaste "media elites," but aren't you a member?

When I say "elite," I mean a state of mind. I don't think George Bush is an elite. He came from a prestigious family, and he's wealthy, but when I say "elite," I mean a state of mind that believes that America's traditional values are kind of passe. They want us to get away from that red, white, and blue, mom-and-pop, traditional family thing. There are all sorts of different lifestyles, and they all work, the elites tell us, and we need to be progressive that way.

Is "elite" just a convenient way to stigmatize your opponents?

Not necessarily. There are conservative elitists. But the elite mindset is much more of a left-wing mindset, because Republicans tend to be champions of traditional America.

Is it harder for women in talk radio?

Women have made strides everywhere; they are going to make strides here. But the point that women have to be careful so that they don't sound shrill --that's true, too. People don't want to hear a woman screaming or talking about sex. People say that the glass ceiling has been shattered, but I think media is a tough, vicious business, and it's always going to be difficult for women.

� D.C. Denison