The Unz Review Republican Hoover built the federal broadcasting shield in 1927. Roosevelt fashioned it into a weapon in 1934 and Democrats have never put it down since. One might consider the elaborate FCC speech barriers:Â A Poll Tax on Public Debate
One of the more enduring myths accepted as reality in our modern society is that America has a relatively free press. The ruling authorities and their entrenched accomplices promote that lie as diligently as they work to ensure that it never again becomes true.
America did have a mostly free and independent press until the rise of broadcasting in the 1920s. Within a few years, a small group of Republicans, progressives and corporate interests successfully nationalized the airwaves with restrictive licensing that blocked competition, rewarded insiders and squelched dissent.
Over the next few decades, the increasingly powerful medium of radio and then television drowned out the previously broad spectrum of information and ideasâwith often three or more diverse choices of daily newspapers in many U.S. citiesâand turned free speech into carefully rationed federal broadcasting privileges, their anointed urban newspaper monopolies and a few approved magazines.
One of the more ironic parts of this forgotten history is that a Republican, Herbert Hoover, led the initial charge to politicize the press. When the more authoritarian FDR took the reins in 1933âholding onto power until his death in 1945âhe would ultimately purge the airwaves as well as the newspaper and magazine stands of the nationâs greatest commentators, publishers, editors and writers. In their absence, only pro-war / pro-welfare state neo-liberals and neo-conservatives would survive in mainstream media for generations to come.
During Rooseveltâs tenure in office, administration officials and prominent associates would wage a scorched-earth campaign against any independent voice of dissent while generously rewarding supporters. Popular radio talk-show hosts Father Charles Coughlin and Boake Carter were dramatically forced off the air. New Republiccolumnist and author John Flynn was successfully targeted for censorship by FDR himself. Independent newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, a lifelong Democrat who initially supported FDR but later soured to New Deal abuses, was vilified and marginalized. Robert âColonelâ McCormick of the Chicago Tribune got roughed up by Rooseveltâs cronies in a similar fashion.
(Anti-New Deal publishers Hearst and McCormick were so popular with the general public that their newspaper âholdings comprised over 50 percent of the countryâs Sunday circulationâ according to pro-FDR media historian Betty Houchin Winfield. Once those independent newsmenâs reputations were destroyed, establishment papers in New York and Washington D.C. would come into prominence.)
The Hollywood studios of Walt Disney were occupied by federal troops one day after Pearl Harbor. The editor and lead columnist for the Saturday Evening Postâmiddle-Americaâs most admired weekly readâwere run off the magazine. Libertarian writer, Albert Jay Nock, was blacklisted. Editor for the liberal Nation magazine, Oswald Garrison Villard, met the same fate. Famous aviator and anti-war spokesman, Charles Lindbergh, found himself viscously condemned by pro-war media for quietly speaking the truth. Popular syndicated columnist at the Baltimore Sun, H.L. Mencken, may have âvoluntarilyâ went into oblivion under hostile conditions that still donât make sense.
These are just some of the big names that went down with a fight. (All of the boldednames above will receive some overdue exoneration a bit later.) No one will ever know how many other smaller fish were scared off from honest reporting as a result of political pressure.
Today, this would be like President Trump having his underlings run coordinated smear campaigns and putting the Washington Post, Time magazine, and both MSNBC and CNN out of business or replacing their editorial staff with reliable pro-Trump lackies. To complete the parallel, a Trump campaign spokesman in Hollywood would have to direct a movie portraying a major publisher (say, Arthur Sulzberger of the NYT) as a hideous demagogue⊠all in good sport, of course.
(Mainstream media goes berserk when Trump merely defends himself from personal attacks during hostile press conferences or from wild conspiracy theories. Back in the 1930s, reporters were far more dignified in their principled disagreement with New Deal policies. And President Roosevelt was much more underhanded in dealing with the press than Trumpâs frequent social-media salvosâmany of which are so obvious as to be written in ALL CAPS.)
Hooverâs Enduring Legacy: A Poll Tax on Public Debate
Republican Herbert Hooverâwho served as President from March 1929 to March 1933âis most known for being the unlucky occupant of the Oval Office during the New York City stock market crash of October 1929. (The Governor of New York at this timeâFranklin Delano Rooseveltâusually gets left out of that narrative.)