Jim Bohannon on air

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 9, 1998 | by James P. Lucier

It's 12:06 a.m. on the FAGAG clock, and now its open-line time, when callers can talk on any subject they want. Jim starts things out by reading the results of a University of Chicago study on sexual activity. This gets things stirred up, of course. During the break, he says, "You never know when they're putting you on."

After the break Barbara from Edison, N.J., calls in to complain about an earlier remark concerning Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Even though she has lived a long life without one of her kidneys, and a bowel that had to be removed, she says that Kevorkian has it all wrong about people who suffer. "Nothing would make me trade one spring day, or one chocolate ice cream."

At 12:30 a.m., Jim opens the segment with a cute prerecorded bit in which he appears to interview ticket sellers in four cities about the going prices for the Super Bowl. It is a nice little turn, in which he asks the questions live, while the sound bites -- which came in a prerecorded feed -- sound like answers to his script. Soon we are hearing from Kimberly in Texas, and Matt in Rolla, Mo., Jim's home state. Then Jim in Coco Beach, Fla., calls in with a questionable, but funny, joke, and John in Santa Rosa, Calif., a military man, goes back to the Saddam Hussein question. Jim pushes the search key on his computer and is reading a news update that came in after the 10:30 p.m. segment with Korb. Bohannon takes time to wish Happy Birthday to his Mom, laughing that she is asleep at this hour. Ray, from Atwater, Calif., calls in at 12:57 a.m., and has only one minute. Then that's it.

Off the air, Jim chats about his show. "I try to elicit information -- which seems awfully straightforward and ordinary, except that is not the agenda of more than a few talk-show hosts. Most just want to make themselves look good or smart, or shed heat instead of light.

"And that's not a scattershot indictment of my colleagues, but it certainly is true of some of them. I just want to elicit information -- get interesting people on, ask them questions, and ask them in the right way. That's what I like to do, that's my goal. We have a variety of guests.

"If you tune in to a lot of talk shows, you pretty much know what you're going to get. That doesn't make them bad; it's what makes them successful. If you tune into Rush, or Liddy, you are going to get conservative politics, and if you tune into Laura, you're going to get tough love. And if you tune into me, you don't know what the hell you're going to get. To me that's a plus."

That's the Bohannon beat.