Broadcast Hysteria

Starred review from January 19, 2015
In the days after the War of the Worlds national radio broadcast in October 1938, thousands of Americans sent angry letters to the FCC, CBS, Orson Welles, and his Mercury Theatre. This new study of War of the Worlds dutifully examines those complaint letters and reveals what really happened in America during that chaotic hour-long broadcast. Schwartz’s debut book sets the scene perfectly and dispels several myths about any “panic” over a Martian invasion in New Jersey. Schwartz gives proper credit to the supporting cast of actors, writers, and composers who made the radio program into an international sensation. He lays out a balanced case—recognizing that some Americans did consider War of the Worlds an actual news report and were deeply frightened by it, but that most treated it as a scary prank or a betrayal of the radio’s supposed objectivity. The book rightly emphasizes the enormous power mass media wields over the emotions and politics of the country. Welles’s Martian landing might not have fooled today’s listeners, but our vulnerability and our appetite for fake news persists. Schwartz’s book is an impeccable account of the most famous radio show in history, a fascinating biography of Orson Welles, and a vital lesson about the responsibility of the media. Agent: Ross Harris, Stuart Krichevsky Agency.

March 15, 2015
A skeptical look at the panic that might have been.Just as literature was created the day a boy cried wolf when there was no wolf, the birth of fake news in the United States may have been Oct. 30, 1938, when a rising young radio celebrity cried Martian when there was no Martian. His name, of course, was Orson Welles (1915-1985), and he unleashed a radio production that convinced a number of people that space invaders had arrived in tiny Grover's Mill, New Jersey, and were proceeding to burn a path of destruction along the East Coast that would shame Gen. Sherman. Listeners throughout the country fled their homes in terror-or did they? That's the question raised in this book by Schwartz, who persuasively argues that Martian hysteria was largely a media invention. Drawing on both ratings and hundreds of archived original letters from listeners (both pro and con) addressed to the FCC and CBS, Schwartz easily dismantles the idea that Welles alarmed the nation, as most people were tuned to another station. Among actual listeners, many knew the program was fiction, either because they heard it announced as such at the beginning or because they saw through it-and loved it. Relatively few people lost their grips on reality, but the press saw them as the majority and never bothered to check if they actually were. "No journalist ever made a serious attempt to figure out how much of the country had even heard the broadcast," writes the author, "much less how many in its audience were frightened." Myth became hardened into fact by a popular academic study, which Schwartz reveals was largely shaped to fit an unexamined hypothesis. The author credibly shows that the problem wasn't the fake broadcast but the fake interpretation-"a newspaper exaggeration born of haste and misunderstanding"-that chilled creative expression. Advertisers, fearful of offending audiences, wanted shows that pandered to the lowest common denominator. Welles' first great triumph also effectively killed the golden age of radio. An entertaining assessment of a watershed moment in American life and its lasting effect on popular culture.

Starred review from March 15, 2015

Fake news takes a serious turn in this thoroughly researched work of nonfiction by first-time author Schwartz. The narrative tells the fascinating story of the history, development, reception, and aftermath of Welles's infamous radio broadcast, as performed by the Mercury Theater on October 30, 1938. A screenwriter by training, Schwartz deftly combines established research on the subject of the broadcast with a diverse selection of primary source materials, including a largely unexamined collection of surviving listener letters housed at the University of Michigan. The result is an engaging account and analysis that quickly draws readers into the early years of broadcast news and entertainment and asks them to take seriously the significance of War of the Worlds, not for its overhyped reputation for inducing hysteria, but for its landmark status in the histories of radio, information culture, and showmen such as Welles. VERDICT A gripping and informative look at the War of the World broadcast, as well as contemporary issues in the early 20th-century industry of radio. Highly recommended for students of journalism, fans of Welles, and general readers interested in radio or broadcasting.--Robin Chin Roemer, Univ. of Washington Lib., Seattle

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2015
The impact that the October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of War of the Worlds had on the listening public has become the stuff of legenda panicked populace fled for the hills while a few hardy souls squared off with shotguns in the face of a supposed Martian invasion. But as Schwartz convincingly demonstrates in his groundbreaking new work, the true story was both more nuanced and more far-reaching. He argues that the broadcast, an adaptation of H. G. Wells' story, did not inspire widespread panic but did ignite a debate about the perils of radio as a communication medium. He reviewed almost 2,000 letters regarding the broadcast, a good portion of whichthose sent to Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatreare here examined for the first time in a book. These letters form the heart of the story, painting a well-defined picture of the gamut of emotions people experienced as a result of the broadcast, whether they were taken in or not. Schwartz's storytelling vividly connects the broadcast to the larger issues of the day. The outcry afterward led to a debate over the role of censorship, as well as research that revolutionized our understanding of how people interpret media messages. The lesson is as relevant now as it was thenmore than Martians, Schwartz shows, we should be concerned about the invasion of fear-spreading media against an unsuspecting population. Fascinating as an analysis of both pop culture and the media.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)