
The Radio Right
How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement
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March 1, 2020
A scholarly but accessible account of how John F. Kennedy's administration's battle against right-wing critics paved a path for the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and their ilk. Censorship is widely understood to be something that right-leaning institutions and corporations do to left-leaning critics. However, as Cato Institute staffer Matzko writes, in the case of radio bloviators such as Carl McIntire and Billy James Hargis, the roles were reversed. The story turns on the opening of the AM spectrum to syndicators at a time when formerly dominant networks such as CBS switched their attention to TV. Into the gap came right-wing commentators who set to work denouncing liberalism, Cold War accommodationism, and Kennedy's Catholicism--all of which required payback. Matzko attributes the rise of these nationally syndicated programs, in part, to the ability to take local protests national: A Miami boycott of Polish (and therefore communist) ham went nationwide almost overnight thanks to relentless promotion by McIntire, a New Jersey-based fundamentalist preacher who, over several years in the 1960s, "averaged $2,040,000 in annual receipts"--about $16.8 million today, chump change compared to what his modern counterparts earn but still substantial. The Kennedy administration employed tools such as IRS audits and FCC regulations to crack down on right-wing dissent, guided by the Reuther Memorandum. The selective use of the since-abandoned Fairness Doctrine, which required stations broadcasting McIntire's "20th Century Reformation Hour" to devote equal time to opposing viewpoints, helped bring down that syndicated program. (When it ended, McIntire attempted to broadcast offshore, which lasted a single day.) Apart from telling this little-known story, Matzko argues, reasonably, that the actions of the Kennedy administration helped reinforce grievances "about the perceived liberal domination of the mainstream media," complaints about which are the bread and butter of the right even today. Students of modern American politics and the sociology of communication will find this provocative, worthy reading.
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