Talk Radio ’94 Stirs the Air, if Nothing Else : Radio: National convention of talk-show hosts is filled with schmoozing and gripes about access to Clinton. Many L.A. personalities stay home.

It was schmooze city in Santa Monica this weekend as hundreds of talk-show hosts converged on a swank beachfront hotel to mingle, network and hobnob.

The sixth annual convention of the National Assn. of Radio Talk Show Hosts, or Talk Radio ‘94, was an opportunity to exchange cards, hawk talk shows for syndication and bestow awards (with the “Talk Show Host of the Year” nod going to syndicated financial-affairs specialist Bruce Williams and the “Freedom of Speech Award” to New York Gov. Mario Cuomo for his efforts against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine).

But mostly it offered plenty of opportunity to talk--in all its various forms. There was enough pitching, pontificating and palavering to fill a year’s worth of air time.

After all, talk-show hosts have in recent years been touted as a new force in American politics with their programs providing a window into the American psyche on political, social and ethical issues. They are a group to be reckoned with, and politicians increasingly seem to recognize their clout.

So, it is not surprising that their collective power drew such political heavy-hitters as Govs. Pete Wilson and Cuomo and Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) to the conference, which ran from Friday through Sunday at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

But, typical of such events--especially when held over summer weekends at beach hotels--others showed up besides an estimated 250 talk-show hosts. Legions of publicists, authors and radio wanna-bes came along too.

A self-congratulatory atmosphere dominated when association board members and executive staff people honored one another with awards for their work organizing the conference.

And a buzz was ever-present as talk-show hosts from Boston to Bakersfield broadcast their shows live from the convention (each staking out his or her own niche within two large ballrooms). No matter if it was 2 a.m., 4 a.m. or 6 p.m., talk-show hosts were talking to their audiences throughout the country.

The culmination of this talk free-for-all was a kind of mega-radio show in which 20 hosts taped their respective shows simultaneously while interviewing Wilson. The information superhighway took on the character of a verbal autobahn with questions, opinions and quips whizzing by unfettered by the usual constraints of commercial breaks.

There were occasional moments of tension, even controversy.

At Friday’s “White House Luncheon” address by Mark Gearan, an assistant to President Clinton, Gearan responded to accusations by some talk-show hosts that the President and his staff were remote and inaccessible and didn’t understand the mechanics of radio talk shows.

“What is the secret to cutting through the clutter at the White House . . . to secure one of those precious few interviews and be included in the loop or even get a return phone call?” asked Mark Williams, a talk-show host out of Tampa, Fla., and a talk-show association board member. “I really haven’t had a whole lot of success in getting what I need from the White House and I’m a Clinton supporter.”

It got worse from there.

“I’m afraid that the White House does not understand what we do for a living,” said association president Gene Burns, whose syndicated program originates from New York. “I’ve done everything but stand on my head and spit wooden nickels to get the White House to talk in the long form. It’s not me I want them to talk to. I want them to talk to the audience.”

It didn’t help that Gearan’s Chief Executive had made some less-than-flattering remarks about talk-show hosts Friday during a call-in show out of St. Louis.

Clinton--who had declined an invitation to speak at the convention and instead sent Gearan--reportedly said that talk-show hosts “fed a sense of cynicism in the country” and criticized some for being negative and intolerant.

Gearan had plenty of responses to take back to the White House.

“Please ask the President to be a bit more judicious in his comments,” said Burns. “We do not feed the nation’s cynicism. We convey it. We may share it, but it comes from our audience.”

The room erupted with hearty applause.

Gearan had told the crowd that “talk radio is a wonderful forum to have a true national debate about all the important agenda items that are before the country,” explaining that the White House understood the commercial pressures faced in radio. He took the opportunity to urge talk-show hosts to have their facts straight, be prepared, allow for guests with opposing viewpoints, avoid using incendiary terms and admit mistakes.

However, his tone turned apologetic and somewhat deferential in the face of criticisms leveled by Burns and others.

He also seemed a bit caught off guard when Jeremy Olderson, who identified himself as “the unabashed voice of liberalism, appearing as nobody on nobody’s show,” asked Gearan to personally pledge to resign if he was ever caught lying to the press.

Gearan agreed, without comment.

His parting shot to the crowd alluded to the testy relationship between the White House and some talk-show hosts: “I look forward to sharing the airwaves with some of you in the near future.” He placed considerable emphasis on the word some.

Los Angeles-based radio talk-show hosts were conspicuously absent and when contacted earlier in the week by a reporter and asked if they planned to attend, many did not even know about the convention.

Others did not seem terribly interested. Still others knew about it, but regarded the event as useless.

“I have no interest in linking up with other talk-show hosts and telling the government how to do their job,” said talk-show host Tom Leykis, who hosts an afternoon drive-time program on KMPC-AM (710).

“They’ll tell you they’re talking about the FCC or the Fairness Doctrine, but in reality they spend most of their time talking about themselves.”