Valley PR Blog

Car Talk’s lessons for communicators

By Angelo Fernando on August 4th, 2008 In Advice

If you listen to Click and Clack, the Car Talk Brothers on NPR, you probably know how hard it is to turn the dial.

Two Sundays ago I heard this comment that was not just typical of their style, but it revealed how far ahead of the “join the conversation” trend they’ve always been.

“If we can’t answer it, our audience will answer it –because they are the ones with the brains and we are the morons.”

Their hallmark self-effacing comments about each other and the show (called “our lousy radio show” on the site!) and occasionally insulting a listener (one was called ‘the little twerp’) are a given. But consider what they also do in that throwaway line.

1. They give the audience huge credit for keeping the show going, and the motivation to continue to do so. Even though the call-ins are essentially to the Brothers.
2. They mean ‘wisdom of the crowds’ without laboring the point or patronizing the audience
3. Like their show, they simplify technical stuff for non-tech people. IT folks could learn a lot from this!

Certainly a different breed of talk show “morons!”

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