Ed Schultz admits he used fake callers, says US Senate offices coached young people how to call in to shows

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3/9/11, "Ed Schultz Admits Use of Staged Calls to His Radio Show," Newsbusters, Jack Coleman

Schultz: ""Now I have to tell you, this has been done. It's been done on the Ed Schultz radio show when we first started. (laughs) But as we gained stations, we never did it again. Look,

• this is show business, although we venture into some more serious bidness as the world goes on.

"But I remember when we started our show in 2004, and I have no problem admitting this, our business manager Vern Thompson at the time was the head of the Democratic Party in the great state of North Dakota. And a year after we started he joined our team here on the Ed Schultz radio show and has been with us ever since. And when we started on two stations, one in Langdon, N.D., and the other one in Needles, Calif., and we had about 500 people listening on the Internet,

• this was before we were on XM and Sirius....

"There weren't any callers. And so what we did through my good buddy Vern who now works for the program? We used to have a few people call in. And it got to be kind of fun because I was trying to guess who the hell Vern was getting to call into the program....And this happens from time to time, I think, with small radio stations across the country that are trying to create talk shows. And, first of all, I had no idea that Premiere Radio Networks hired actors to call in as guests. That's news to me."

Schultz claimed the staged calls lasted only the first few weeks of his show and none of the callers was paid (audio) --

"Uh, by the way, we haven't had a staged caller to this program since...and we didn't pay anybody. Hell, we didn't have any money."

Then came this revelation from Schultz (audio) --

"Now the other story was is when this program started in 2004, there was a lot of scuttlebutt on Capitol Hill, was that, well, Democrats and liberals don't know how to use talk radio. They're just

• overwhelmed by the right wingers and we just don't know how to do anything

when it comes to conversation. So there were, and I'm not going to reveal the names, there were a few Senate offices that got involved and got some interns involved and they started to survey and coach these kids up and a few of their communications people were coaching them up on how to call a talk show. And so, such was the birth of liberal talk. I don't know if they do that now. I don't know on Capitol Hill, I'm in New York, I'm not, I don't know if any of the Senate offices or House offices do that any more. I know they listen online, I know they watch "The Ed Show" on MSNBC and they do all the cables to see what the hell's going on.

Having just admitted his own use of staged callers, Schultz proceeded to condemn conservative talkers for doing the same,

• while neglecting to identify any (audio) --...

via Lucianne.com