NYT: "Talk Radio Is Turning Millions of Americans Into Conservatives"
Article describes the influence right wing radio has had since the 1960s. Some interesting quotes:
This was true of conservative radio long before the current generation of talk radio hosts emerged in the 1980s. By the early 1960s, a group of AM radio broadcasters had built an informal national syndicated network of hundreds of radio stations; the largest of the broadcasters, a fundamentalist preacher in New Jersey named Carl McIntire, reached an estimated audience of 20 million listeners a week (which, for sake of comparison, is as many as Rush Limbaugh reportedly hit at his peak four decades later). Americans could tune into a station airing conservative programming all day, every day.
By 1963 President John F. Kennedy was so worried about what an aide called this “formidable force in American life today,” which was able to “harass local school boards, local librarians and local government bodies,” that he authorized targeted Internal Revenue Service audits and the use of the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine to silence these pesky conservative broadcasters. The result was the most successful episode of government censorship of the last half century.
Conservative broadcasters have never forgotten it, and it is a key reason that a conspiracist mind-set has such a grip on listeners. Since 2003, Rush Limbaugh, who got his start working in radio as a teenager in the mid-1960s, has mentioned the Fairness Doctrine on nearly 150 episodes. He credits the rise of talk radio to the lifting of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by the Reagan administration. And he worries that the left could at any moment use a revived Fairness Doctrine to silence conservative radio. As Mr. Limbaugh put it in January, “They’ve been trying to nullify or negate me” for three decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/talk-radio-conservatives-trumpism.html
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the sowing of division and hatred between millions of everyday people. America was not that way before and I would submit we now have a dysfunctional nation on a path to fascism.
This is entirely the doing of a mostly hidden sector of right-wing high wealth individuals. They have a psychopathic hatred for anything that retards business expansion and revenue growth, including most everything our government has traditionally done for everyday people.
Everything else Republicans preach about is just populist fluff to gather votes from naive, vulnerable people.
The words conservative and conservatism have been completely adulterated until they're now meaningless.
KY....
notably a few here in Philly who were basically "Libertarian" and who eventually openly called themselves that. One such character here was Irv Homer ("Evil Irving" ) -
Irv Homer
Broadcast Pioneers Luncheon
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Broadcast Pioneers member Irv Homer began his talk show career hosting a telephone talk show at WXUR, later he became the top-rated area talk-show host of the Delaware Valley. Irv Homer was born on Thursday, May 29, 1924 in Philadelphia and grew up in the City of Brotherly Love. During the second world war, he served in the United States Air Force. Irv didn't plan to become the popular and controversial talk-show host he is today. He originally owned three bars in the Philadelphia area. He also spent a lot of time listening to and calling all the different talk-show hosts in the area and even described himself as a talk-show freak.
In the late 1960's, a neighbor of Irv's, Marvin Burak who had a successful talk show on WPEN in the fifties, purchased some time on WXUR for Marvin's "Radio Free Philadelphia" show. Marvin was on Thursdays and Fridays and talked station general manager John Norris into filling Monday through Wednesday with a new show called, "Right-Center-Left." These three days were not paid for, but ran as a public service. Burak took the Left, Jay Parker (later in the Reagan administration) took the right and Irv was the Center. It was Irv's job to listen to the view from the left and the view from the right and then throw both views out the window. The listeners loved it. Sometimes, the broadcasts originated live from Burak's home. Marvin thought Irv Homer would be perfect for talk radio because, "he had a big mouth and wasn't afraid to say what he thought, even if you didn't want to hear it."
Then, Irv went on to the station WEEZ in Chester. He had been calling the station so much to debate the moderators that the program director decided he liked Irv's style and called him to offer him a chance to go on the air. The audience loved him. Of course, the station hired Irv. In March of 1975 Irv was hired and became part of the family at WWDB. WWDB (96.5 FM) then known as "The Talk Station in Philadelphia".
[snip]
In 1972, Irv ran for Vice-President of the United States on the Libertarian Party's ticket. As Irv likes to say: "It boggles the mind." Irv Homer died on Wednesday evening, June 24, 2009. On Friday, Novmber 19, 2010, Irv Homer was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.
https://www.broadcastpioneers.com/irvhomer.html
I remember being home from work and listening - BY ACCIDENT - to Rush's very first show (in 1988 I believe), because I listened to 770 WABC in NY (which we could pick up down here) and normally listened to Lynn Samuels, who originally had that 12 - 3 spot and who was unceremoniously booted out and "moved down the hall" into another studio (IIRC her story about it), to be replaced by him in that slot (her show moved to a different time). Eventually he moved his operations down to Florida in his bunker.
and her show moved around and around and she was fired and brought back, over and over, and she eventually moved to the Sirius' "Left" channel. Later the channel became SiriusXM Left when the 2 companies merged (I originally had XM), and was finally renamed SiriusXM Progress.
By then, she had gone full birther before she died. 
I had subscribed to XM radio back in 2007 - right around the time they were merging with Sirius. And both networks had some kind of "liberal talk" station and she was on the Sirius one (Sirius Left). When they merged and eventually combined the 2 (I think XM's was "Progress" ), that's when I discovered where she was and was like
She could be irritating and annoying at times in the past but then she made some kind of decision to go all Orly Taitz. 
I don't know if it is that someone was/is blackmailing them or what. But the sudden shift is often pretty dramatic.
That's a real shame.
Yeah, she could be annoying here and there, but aren't we all at some point - here and there. 
Thx for the piece.
that could be grating. 
were "syndicated" to be able to hear in more markets than their home market.
One oldie but "goodie" 
who just died recently, was "The Reverend Les Kinsolving" -
Yet another was Tom Marr, who I see also recently died
and who at one point, was commuting back and forth here to Philly from Baltimore to do shows on both stations.
Of course the "father of modern conservative RW loon shock-jock talk radio", who you'll hear many like Alex Jones, attempt to copy - Bob Grant, famous for yelling "GET OFF MY PHONE you [fill in the blank invective]!!!!!".
These people were out there stoking the fires before the Rash Limpballs and Shit Hannitys and Glenn BecKKKs suddenly appeared in the mid-late '80s and early '90s.
I used to listen to Bob Grant years ago as he bopped between WABC and WOR. He would get fired from one station for his potty mouth and then move to the other station, over and over, all during his insane career.
Michael Gallagher ended up filling in for him a lot and eventually got his own show.
Bill Cunningham (on WLW in Cincinnati that I could actually pick up on the radio here at night when he was on), Neal Boortz (who was eventually syndicated), and of course Savage (Michael) Weiner - all of these people took it to the next level of "course talk".
Oddly enough, I didn't mind listening to him in the past. But then at the time, I was young and foolish.
Now I have no patience for their crap, especially since I have to PAY to hear some liberal talk, since they managed to remove it all off the free/public airwaves. Every once in awhile I will "accidentally" tune into Armstrong Williams since he was on the same SiriusXM channel as Joe Madison ("Urban View" ), but most of these RW talkers have gone completely off the deep end and each year it has gotten worse. 
that I have been listening to on and off since I was in junior high following their live broadcasts of the Nixon Watergate hearings in the afternoon when coming home from school.
Their program "Fresh Air" broadcasts from here with Terry Gross and I used to listen to Nina Totenberg too.
The problem is that at some point, they started to shift and go more conservative, as the loons started defunding them and pushing their programming and guests more and more to the right, as a way of interfering with their programming. It seemed to happen after Shrub got into office because I used to listen to NPR during the Gulf War and heard some excellent programming (and also got a shortwave radio to listen to a number of international broadcasts at the time).
from way back when they were first getting started and offered it. And I am shocked that they are still upholding that because so many entities like that "forget" and claim they are no longer "honoring" those "lifetime" subs.
And SiriusXM does broadcast the audio for MSNBC and CNN so I'll often be in bed and put them on (I am an early bird so it can be hard to try to stay up and watch Rachel or Lawrence or Brian Williams. I'll also listen to CSPAN Radio because they do have some politics-related programming on it and offer streaming of it via an app (plus it streams on SiriusXM on one of their streaming channels - it used to be part of their regular receiver lineup).
it can be (from my past listening) quite sexist and anti LGB (the TQI wasn't around yet when I was listening).
I remember Limblarg getting callers saying women should have the vote taken away from them bc they elected President Bill Clinton!
I had read The Handmaid's Tale 6 years earlier. 
Listening to that kind of shit...
