The Pulse: Doughnut politics: Extreme right, extreme left, hole in the middle

On Friday, I delivered the keynote address at a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Chicago, the people who own, run, and program the nation's talk-radio stations. And unlike the spontaneity required to work in the business daily, this invitation afforded me plenty of time to plan what I wanted to say.

I started by tracing my career path back to the old WWDB-FM (96.5), where the lineup of talkers then included Irv Homer, Frank Ford, Dominic Quinn, and Bernie Herman. Back then, it wasn't necessary to have ideology in common. What these headliners shared were engaging personalities. "Evil" Irv was an acerbic libertarian. Ford was an unabashed liberal. Quinn was erudite and had an unparalleled command of the English language. And Herman was billed as the "gentleman of broadcasting."

Sid Mark, the Philadelphia broadcasting institution who is about to celebrate 55 years on the air, recalls delivering his own talk program immediately after Ford. "I was worried that I would have to pick up on a new topic that was outside my realm, and he would say, 'Don't worry, I will leave you a full board of callers,' " Mark told me. "In other words, I could continue a conversation but not with the same perspective. There was collegiality."

Gentlemanly? Collegial? I can't imagine either being a winning brand in today's climate, which was the issue I addressed at the NAB.

Media polarization based on a faux ideological and partisan divide is having a horrific effect on Washington, where collegiality used to be commonplace but is now kryptonite. Before, politicians raised a glass with one another at the end of the day. Today, they raise their voices as if they're on a perpetual split screen.

And they get rewarded for it by each party's respective base - in the form of campaign contributions and increasingly important primary-election support. The more doctrinaire the view, the more likely it will be encouraged with campaign funds and interview requests.

That individualism is dead in D.C. is not subject to debate. The National Journal recently detailed how Congress is more divided today than at any point in the last 30 years. Gone are the days when Jesse Helms of North Carolina and New York's Jacob Javits were both Senate Republicans. Today, every Senate Republican is more conservative than every Senate Democrat, and every Senate Democrat is more liberal than every Senate Republican. The elected middle has vanished.

There are many reasons for this, including the diminished role of seniority, which allows telegenic ideologues to rise to positions of power. Gerrymandering robs us of competitive races, while closed primaries cater to each party's base, further isolating moderate voters.

But the media is also a big contributor insofar as it gives voice to the extremes while ignoring the middle. That's because the loyalty derived from partisan listeners (as well as viewers or readers) is thought to outweigh the benefits of seeking to expand the listening tent.

It's time to change that business model, I argued to the NAB. A Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey conducted at the end of August found that 40 percent of Americans said their general approach to issues is "moderate." Indeed, the only people whose politics align perfectly with the right- and left-wing litmus tests are those discussing current events on radio and cable television. In my experience, most people are conservative on some points, liberal on others, and haven't reached an opinion on the rest.

But you'd never know they exist from listening and watching the media today, which extend themselves not to the middle, but to the extremes.

It's a vicious cycle that robs us of substantive dialogue at a time when it is desperately needed, and political deal-making has been replaced with deadlock. There are even fights over which night the president will speak to Congress.

Substance need not equal boredom. I did not ask the NAB membership to sacrifice their business objective - namely, attracting listeners. Rather, I asked the broadcast executives to allow hosts to build an audience without being compelled to construct a political clubhouse in which every member must agree on every issue. Provide a platform to entertaining, compelling voices that might not fit the current mold.

For the sake of your stations, and the nation.