Rhode Island governor and former U.S. senator Lincoln Chafee has announced that he won’t be going on talk radio and he’s prohibited all other state employees from appearing on talk radio during working hours too.

That’s just fine. This appears to be a reaction to his GOP predecessor who appeared on talk radio frequently as part of his overall communications strategy. Chafee doesn’t want to do that – fine.

What’s silly about the ban is the “reasoning” behind it.

Spokesman Michael Trainor said a directive will go out over the next day or so that reflects that new policy.

He said the policy emanates from a belief that talk radio is essentially “ratings-driven, for-profit programming,” and “we don’t think it is appropriate to use taxpayer resources” in the form of state employee work time to “support for-profit, ratings-driven programming.”

Accordingly, Chafee will still speak with NPR and local radio reporters (because local radio is apparently neither ratings-driven or for-profit). Chafee will also continue to speak with newspaper reporters, because, based upon the state of the newspaper industry – they too are neither circulation-driven or for-profit.