Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Politics and Culture in Modern America)

by Nicole Hemmer

and where to turn for help (enclosing booklists from Devin-Adair, a reading list by Phyllis Schlafly, and the address of Patriotic Education, Inc., a Florida company that peddled Constitution study kits).

For clubs to make an impact, they had to do more than speak just to one another—they had to influence their communities. One way of achieving this was through the “letters to the editor” section of local newspapers.

“I found that many of my correspondents were not ready for the John Birch Society. They would join the infantry, but not the commandoes.”

“In the most critical periods of our nation’s history, there have always been those on the fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat,”

“At times these fanatics have achieved a temporary success among those who lack the will or the wisdom to face unpleasant facts or unsolved problems. But in time the basic good sense and stability of the great American consensus has always prevailed.”

The FCC and conservative broadcasters eventually locked horns over the Fairness Doctrine, the regulation requiring stations to air balanced coverage of controversial issues. The

right believed the Kennedy administration was using the doctrine to silence conservatives. And indeed, the doctrine

was deployed to stifle right-wing (as well as left-wing) broadcasters i...

narrative of a conservative vox populi muzzled by liberal government.

was in this moment that the longstanding conservative distrust of liberal media sharpened into the powerful political critique of “media bias.”

But neither he nor others in the established media delineated between religious and secular conservative media, bracketed together because of their shared politics.

They sought to win both votes and souls, but growing the church was generally more important than growing the movement. Institutionally,

Nothing drew secular and religious conservative broadcasters closer than their shared sense of persecution and opposition to federal regulation.

The Fairness Doctrine, generally given a birthdate of 1949, sprouted from a tangle of legislative and regulatory roots, a labyrinthine history that bedeviled broadcasters,

ideas fairly and objectively presented. . . . In brief,” they concluded, “the broadcaster cannot be an advocate.”

For conservative broadcasters, whose programs were by definition controversial, the uncertainty and vagueness surrounding the doctrine fed their suspicions that it was a nefarious instrument of government suppression.

“Americanism,” “anti-communism,” and “states’ rights” were likely included because by 1963 segregationists were beginning to substitute these code words for openly racist appeals.

racial justifications for segregation.20 And yet conservatives weren’t entirely wrong to feel singled out by the FCC. The commission did have a bone to pick with them. For over a decade,

to communists or atheists, as adherents to these views did not, in their judgment, meet the definition of “responsible groups” discussed in the July 26 notice.

And a Birmingham, Alabama, station

denied the Citizens Committee any time at all, arguing the station had aired plenty of news reports featuring President Kennedy and his supporters touting the treaty.

“Freedom of speech is something precious to all Americans—liberals, conservatives, and the uncommitted alike—for the right to speak your mind without fear of government reprisal is almost as sacred in a free society as our faith in a living God.”

That conjoined civic and religious faith had long been part of Billy James Hargis’s creed.

Written in December 1961 by labor leaders Victor and Walter Reuther at the request of John and Robert Kennedy, the twenty-four-page memo outlined ways the Kennedy administration could use the federal government to deal with the “radical right.”

the Reuthers recommended using the FCC to investigate stations that offered free or discounted rates to conservative broadcasters and to encourage the administration and allied liberal groups to file Fairness Doctrine complaints against stations airing right-wing shows.

“aware that the Right has always depended heavily on the air waves to put forward its views, since most of the opinion-making channels are in effect closed by the Liberal orthodoxy in the academies, the major magazines, and the press.”

Because two points make a line, not a pattern, National Review added one more bit of evidence:

(Right-wing broadcasters defended this practice by arguing the radio market did not represent a truly free market, both because it was heavily regulated by the FCC and because conservative

broadcasters had a difficult time convincing owners to sell them time.)

in the 1950s and early 1960s reporting often echoed the administration line with little pushback.

Administration claims were treated as fact, leading both the left and the right to criticize what they called “managed news.”

As such, opposition to the Fairness Doctrine transformed from a specific political complaint into a fundamental part of the conservative creed, helping construct and reinforce the right’s oppositional identity.

that the Fairness Doctrine could soon be extended to print as well, leading to blanket censorship across all media forms.

the Forum lamented the show’s “end may not be far away” thanks to “the dictatorial ambitions of Washington” to silence all conservative voices.

I

listened to that speech, and divined its implication, in a car coming back to town from Westhampton. . . .

that my central premises had all been wrong; that all my political efforts up to that moment had been misdirected; that I had, in fact, to start all over again.

liberal gatekeepers.

conservative congressmen held powerful positions in both parties, winning office as anti–New Deal Republicans or nestled in safe seats as Democrats from the Jim Crow South.

Shortly after McCormick died in April 1955, the IRS denied For America tax-exempt status (as it did with most conservative organizations),

While Manion continued to call for an “American Party” on his program, his language made an intriguing shift in late 1955. He began to argue the real threat to the “one-party system” was not a new party but “the emergence of a powerful new Presidential ticket” devoted to conservative ideas. A ticket, not a party.

That was precisely what For America would deliver in 1956.

was less an endorsement than a grant of permission:

Adam Clayton Powell’s

Southern Conservatives.”

“Dear Fellow-American on the Edge of a Precipice.”

liked to play around with the salutation, adding a note of alarm (“Dear Fellow-American, Planning Your Bomb Shelter”), absurdity (“Dear Fellow-American on the Marxist Merry-Go-Round”), or poetry (“Dear Fellow-American, Wandering in a Forest of Uncertainty”).

This made him a natural ally for fellow senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, whose

insistence that communists had infiltrated the State Department defined

conservative Republicanism in...