Love him or hate him, you better listen to him. That’s what some of the listeners to Charlie Sykes have been saying about the WTMJ-AM talk show as Sykes passes 10 years on the air in Milwaukee.

Just consider the following two e-mails sent to Sykes this week:

“My husband reminded me this morning that this was about the same time that my blood pressure started to give me problems. Over the years you have given me a lot to disagree with. If anything you have made me a stronger Democrat and for that I thank you. I really hope you are on WTMJ for another 10 years. This alone, will increase the Democratic Party's membership,” wrote Carol Zess.

“Think about how much different the Milwaukee area might be if you did not go on the air ten years ago...thousands of kids might not have a choice in education, the gas tax might be much higher, the Brewers might be from another town, Chuck Chvala might still be the Senate Majority Leader, the courts might be completely filled with liberal judges; and the county might be...well, you know where I'm going with that one,” wrote Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.

As Sykes celebrates his 10 years on the air, he agreed to talk with Milwaukeeworld.com about why his show has been successful, his opinion on Milwaukee media and how he handles criticism.

Q: Why do you think your program has been successful?

A: We have a great audience and a lot to talk about. I’ve been lucky to be on a station with the reach of WTMJ and we live in interesting times. But I also think this area has been especially hungry for an alternative voice, particularly a conservative one. That’s been the biggest transition over the last 10 years – the loss of a second newspaper and the rise of radio as a major alternative voice in the media.

Probably inadvertently, the (Milwaukee) Journal Sentinel has been a huge help here by continuing to ignore conservative voices and ideas. That created an opportunity and I think I’ve benefited from it.

Q: Your background was in print journalism, at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Magazine. How difficult was the transition to radio? What have been the biggest challenges?

A: That took a while, because I had been indoctrinated in the notion that the electronic media was the dumber cousin of print. But I’ve always thought that different media have different strengths: print is still the best way to formulate ideas and arguments; radio is especially good as disseminating and explaining ideas; while television can dramatize. Now we have the Internet, which combines some of the elements of each.

Q: Is your show news or entertainment?

A: It’s news, opinion, insight, debate, all of which I hope is entertaining. After all, what’s the alternative to “entertaining”? Dull?

Q: How do you respond to critics who say you are just pushing a conservative agenda and trying to help Republican elected officials?

A: Of course, I’m pushing a conservative agenda. There’s a reason for that: I’m a conservative. I don’t hide that and I don’t pretend otherwise. That’s one of the differences between what I do and what the rest of the media does. They have a bias too, but they pretend that they don’t. I put my point of view right up front.

As for helping Republicans… only when they’re right. During the budget debate, I accused members of the Joint Finance Committee of suffering from an outbreak of SARS -- Stupid
Republican Syndrome -- you can figure out what the A stands for. And the last time I checked David Clarke is technically a Democrat.

Q: Your show obviously creates a lot of feedback, both positive and negative. You've talked on the air about some of the hostile feedback you get to some of your opinions. How do you deal with those and give an example if you can?

A: I guess it’s a function of modern technology – voice mail, e-mail, everything – that makes it so easy for people to sound off. Frankly, it took me a while to get used to some of the really vicious hate mail and the personal attacks.

But that just goes with the territory, and after a few years you develop a thick skin. You’ve got to realize that if you stick your head up over the foxhole, people are going to take shots. In some ways the volume of hate mail is a reliable indicator that you’re scoring points. I’ve actually gotten to the point where, I think some of it is hilarious.

I remember a few years before he retired, our sports guy, Jim Irwin, would get a negative letter once a month or so and he would obsess about it all morning. I’d say, “Jim, I get 10 of those every day. Want to trade?”

Q: What is your favorite segment of the show that you ever did? On the other hand, what was the most disappointing?

A: There’s a lot to choose from. I really enjoyed the outbreak of grassroots democracy in the Ament recall campaign. But I think the single most memorable show was the one we called the “War of the Worlds” segment involving the new Brewer Stadium. The Legislature was debating the issue and it was getting late in the process. Most of their calls were against the project. One day I decided to take a page from Orson Welles, and after the appropriate disclaimers that all of this was hypothetical, we did a full-blown show, complete with faked “news” reports that the Brewers had announced they were gone.

Callers had to play along with the premise that this had already happened. Most listeners knew what we were doing. But some didn’t, and the phones at the Brewers offices started ringing off the hook. Laurel Prieb later told me that some of their own employees thought it was real. Calls also started coming into the Capitol from supporters who’d been sitting on their hands. Somehow the show had clicked and people started to think what it would be like if we lost the team.

Predictably the paper sneered that it was a “stunt,” but I think it helped turn the tide. Whether building Miller Park turns out to be such a great idea is another issue, though.

As far as disappointments, with the exception of the pension scandal story, I’m sometimes frustrated by how hard it is to get City of Milwaukee taxpayers aroused about anything. And I mean anything.

Q: What role do you believe talk radio programs such as yours had on the forced resignation of Milwaukee County Executive F. Thomas Ament and the recall of several Milwaukee County supervisors?

A: We played a big role, but you have to see it in context. This was a huge, spontaneous grassroots uprising and credit needs to go to the people who actually did the organizing and the hard work. We helped provide them a forum, we kept the heat on, and were unashamedly cheerleaders.

And we were willing to take a risk. Jeff (Wagner) and I decided to support the recall that first week, when nobody thought it stood a chance. When we walked into Texx’s Victory Hall that first night, we really had no idea what to expect and it was very possible that we’d fall flat on our faces. But we decided it was worth it.

Other talk show hosts make different choices. I think I referred to that when I asked the crowd at one of the rallies, “Who’s standing up for Milwaukee now?”

Q: What is your opinion of the Milwaukee media, specifically television news and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel? Are Milwaukee residents hurt by the lack of a second newspaper that prospers in other cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.?

A: The loss of two newspaper voices has been huge. Even though they were owned by the same company, the Journal and Sentinel newsrooms did compete and did keep one another honest. There was an edge in their reporting.

But what does it say about the paper that the pension story wasn’t broken by the Journal Sentinel, but by Milwaukeeworld.com. What does it say that the paper was beaten on aspects of the Weakland story by the Washington Post, ABC, and talk radio? It’s hard to imagine that those stories would have been missed if we still had the Journal and the Sentinel around.
When it wants to the Journal Sentinel can be magnificent, as we saw when they got around to covering the county pension scandal story. But it’s often inconsistent, and I’ll be honest – I sometimes just don’t understand why they make some of the decisions they do. But, as I said earlier, that has created a very real opening for alternative voices.

I also sense that the paper has actually become more liberal in recent years, perhaps in reaction to the success of talk radio. I don’t know if there has been any conscious effort, or whether it’s just the natural group-think of the newsroom, but the bias sometimes seems more overt.

It doesn’t help that the Journal Sentinel does not have a single conservative columnist. But, again, that simply cedes the field to talk radio. Why doesn’t the paper make even a token effort to speak to the huge number of conservatives in their target audience? I have no idea, you’ll have to ask Marty Kaiser (editor of the Journal Sentinel).

As for local television, don’t get me started.

Q: How has your program benefited from the long list of scandals that have unfolded in Milwaukee over the past 18 months, from Ament to the City Hall scandal? Did you ever see it coming?

A: Do weathermen benefit from tornados? Absolutely, they have made a difference, because they have smashed the complacency notion that stuff like that doesn’t happen around here. I think people also realized that we were often ahead of the curve on some of the things that were happening in local government. I can’t say that I saw all of the scandals, but I have spent years pounding away at that in politics. As H.L. Mencken said, “Conscience is that small voice saying that someone is watching.” And for a long while nobody was watching.

I do think that more is coming. Right now, we are watching a slow-motion scandal in election fraud and, once again, the media is largely asleep. You put that together with the role of casino money in politics and I think we have the makings of the perfect storm. But this time, nobody can claim they are surprised.

Q: Have the scandals and the resulting fallout changed residents' views? Have you seen a change in the number of calls you receive on specific topics or the outrage expressed by callers?

A: I think that a number of things changed the climate: the presidential election of 2000, September 11, and the Ament scandal. People were empowered. They are holding public officials to a higher standard, and for the first time, they think they can make a difference. As I’ve said on the air, I don’t know if we’re going to see an actual taxpayer revolt, but all the conditions appear ripe.

Q: How long do you see yourself continuing the show?

A: I’m in the first year of a new four-year deal that runs through 2006, having more fun than ever, and plan to be here for a very long time.

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