Review of the Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy: The Battle
  for Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 by Robert McChesney.
  Reviewed by Wally Bowen, executive director of Citizens for Media
  Literacy, Asheville, N.C. (Copyright Wally Bowen. All rights reserved.
  For reprint information call 704-255-0182 or e-mail <cml@unca.edu>.)



Question: Why does Rush Limbaugh's extreme, partisan views get so much
airtime, while liberal, progressive voices are rarely heard in
commercial broadcasting?

Answer: Though vulgar and mean, Limbaugh's brand of extremism is
considered "safe" by commercial broadcasters because he does not
challenge the legitimacy of corporate domination of American media,
politics and cultural life.


Indeed, Limbaugh's extensive "enemies list" is limited solely to
relatively powerless groups: feminists, minorities, the poor, and
liberals. The fact that Limbaugh is actually a noisy lapdog for
corporate interests was underscored Aug. 30, 1993, when NBC named
Roger Ailes president of the network's new cable channel, "America's
Talking."

Ailes is executive producer of "The Rush Limbaugh Show." He was the
1988 Bush campaign consultant responsible for the Willie Horton ad.
Ailes will also head CNBC, the network's business news cable channel.

NBC President Robert C. Wright defended his hiring of Ailes by telling
the New York Times that Ailes "left the political business in 1991."
Ailes will continue as Limbaugh's executive producer while serving
NBC.


The American Way

NBC's right-turn to Roger Ailes (not to mention NBC's disingenuous
view that Ailes has "left the political business") is nothing new.

Its conservative leanings were apparent in the late 1920s when the
RCA-owned National Broadcasting Company became the leading force in
the corporate takeover of the public airwaves, according to a new
history of American broadcasting by University of Wisconsin historian
Robert W. McChesney ("Telecommunication, Mass Media, & Democracy: The
Battle for Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935" Oxford University
Press).

The fledgling network and its allies amassed a small army of attorneys
and engineers to turn public opinion, key members of Congress, the
White House, and the newly-formed Federal Radio Commission (later to
become the FCC) to its view that broadcasting in the hands of
network-controlled "chains" was the "American Way."

Led by NBC President Merlin Aylesworth, the broadcast lobby
depoliticized the policy debate over who should control broadcasting
by framing it mainly as a problem of engineering and finance: i.e.,
how can broadcasting reach the most Americans, and who can best afford
to accomplish the task?

(The use of free speech arguments to justify private ownership of
broadcasting did not emerge until after the industry had used Congress
and the federal regulatory agencies to consolidate its ownership of
the airwaves.)

To establish its hegemony, the industry had to clear the airwaves of a
substantial number of non-profit broadcasters -- mostly colleges and
universities. By 1925, America had 128 active college radio stations.
An almost equal number of non-profit stations were operated by labor
unions, religious groups and various civic organizations.

Commercial broadcasting also had to defuse substantial public outrage
over the growing barrage of advertising directed at radio listeners.
Engulfed as we are today with incessant advertising pitches, it's
difficult to imagine just how intrusive and irritating radio ads were
once considered by the American public.

Moreover, the networks' goal of privatizing America's public airwaves
had to overcome a diverse group of opponents who deeply believed that
such an outcome was fundamentally undemocratic and could seriously
limit the voices, opinions and issues considered to have a
"legitimate" place on the public agenda.


Republicans for Reform

The opposition was comprised of "Elements of education, labor,
religion, the press, civic groups, and the intelligentsia" and even
included prominent, progressive Republicans such as Frances Payne
Bolton, whose husband, Chester Bolton, was a member of Congress, and
whose foundation -- the Payne Fund -- supported the reform movement
with grants totalling $250,000.

Indeed, one party loyalist telegrammed President Herbert Hoover in
1930: "The loyal patriotic flag loving Republicans of this nation are
expecting you to direct a policy that will save this nation from
becoming the pawns and chattels of the . . . chain monopolies."

As Secretary of Commerce, Hoover urged broadcasters to seek
alternative sources of funding in order to minimize on-air advertising
because the radio listener cannot "ignore advertising in which he is
not interested." As president, Hoover was embarrassed when radio
announcers thanked a tobacco company for granting him time for a
speech on Lincoln's birthday.

Hoover repeatedly criticized the industry's growing reliance on
entertainment fare to the exclusion of public affairs and educational
programming. And he praised college radio stations as "a step toward
the realization of the true mission of radio." He called for a 2
percent tax on radio set sales to "pay for daily programs of the best
skill and talent."

Despite opposition, the industry held two powerful trump cards:
virtually unlimited capital resources via corporate owners such as
RCA, United Fruit Co., General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T; and a
well-oiled and well-funded lobbying and public relations machine.

In turn, this double-barrelled clout attracted powerful allies:

* attorneys, engineers and federal regulators who used Washington's
  "revolving door" to embark on lucrative careers in the industry
  they were charged to regulate

* friendly politicians who enjoyed the prestige and visibility of
  having their speeches broadcast

* friendly print media led by the industry-backed Broadcasting
  magazine as well as key journalists such as Orrin Dunlap, Jr.,
  the broadcasting editor of the New York Times.

Through painstaking research into corporate and government archives as
well as the personal papers of a legion of activists, McChesney
delivers a blow-by-blow account of how "the reformers were
unmercifully crushed, with their activities and arguments banished
from the historical record."

Ironies abound in this battle for broadcasting. For example, though
today's industry generally opposes government regulation (though it
was quite willing for Congress to regulate cable TV last year), in the
mid-1920s it vigorously lobbied for the establishment of the Federal
Radio Commision (later to become the FCC).

After packing the FRC with its own lobbyists, the industry used the
agency to harass and eventually dismantle the non-profit broadcasting
sector. One tactic required non-profit broadcasters to defend their
licenses every 90 days before the FRC in Washington. The legal fees
incurred -- plus the onset of the Depression -- were more than enough
to slowly strangle most non-profits.

The FRC justified its favoritism toward commercial broadcasters by
labelling them "general service" stations, while non-profit
broadcasters were designated "propaganda" stations because they served
"special interests" such as labor, religion and education.

Radio with a Point of View

Typical of the FRC's tactics was its treatment of the Chicago-based
WCFL -- the "Voice of Farmer-Labor" -- which by 1929 had 25 full-time
employees with a capital investment of $400,000. The station provided
a full range of programming including music, comedy, baseball, and
foreign language fare, interspersed with public affairs programs from
the labor perspective.

In 1928, the FRC forced WCFL to share the 970 frequency with NBC's
Seattle affiliate, KJR. In doing so, the FRC favored the "general
interest" NBC station by forcing WCFL to cut its power to 1,000 watts
and eliminate all broadcasting after dark, when most workers were free
to listen.

Even though the Chicago Federation of Labor was prepared to commit
capital for a 50,000-watt, clear-channel station, WCFL was forced to
spend the next several years in expensive litigation before the FRC.
The labor station lost every round of hearings, leading one station
official to lament: "Will the public interest be served by granting
all the channels of communication to those who do the employing and
denying even one cleared channel of communication to the vast group of
employees?"

Similar tactics were used against WLWL, a New York City station
founded by the Paulist Fathers with private donations and dedicated to
presenting "talks on religious, social and literary subjects and
discussions of interest of the present day." When WLWL went on the air
Sept. 24, 1925, it was one of America's 20 most powerful stations.

Just one year later, however, the station was forced to share its 1040
frequency with a station operated from an amusement park in the Bronx.
WLWL's frequency was changed twice more in the next nine months. It
finally was assigned the 810 frequency, which it was to share equally
with commercial station WMCA. Then in December, 1927, the FRC reduced
WLWL's broadcasting to just two day-time hours because, like WCFL, it
was deemed a "special interest" enterprise.

When WMCA was granted the lion's share of the hours, its transmitter
was only 500 watts, compared to WLWL's 5,000-watt transmitter. The
Paulist Fathers were outraged and urged their listeners to protest the
move by writing to the FRC, which received 25,000 letters in one week.
When no relief was forthcoming from the FRC, the Fathers began
organizing to take their case to Congress.

When the battle for broadcasting moved from the FRC to Congress in the
early 1930s, broadcast reformers mounted strong but uncoordinated
lobbying efforts, which coincided with public disgust at the growing
trivialization of the airwaves by advertising-sponsored programming.

But the grass-roots reformers were no match for the commercial
broadcast lobby, led by NBC's Aylesworth and the industry-funded
National Association of Broadcasters. At every critical juncture over
the next five years, the broadcast lobby was able to keep the policy
debate behind closed-door hearings and out of the public eye.

Perhaps the most critical turning point occurred in December, 1933,
when the Association of Newspaper Publishers of America met with
Aylesworth and NAB representatives at the Biltmore Hotel in New York
City.

The U.S. press had become increasingly disturbed by the rise of radio
for two reasons: commercial radio was thought to be draining ad
revenues from print media; and the CBS network had begun its own
news-gathering operation. Around-the-clock coverage of the Lindberg
baby kidnapping and the 1932 presidential election had especially
irked America's newspaper publishers.

Had the press supported the broadcast reform movement with coverage,
Aylesworth and the NAB could not have kept the policy battle under
wraps. In what became known as the "Biltmore agreement," however, the
press was mollified when the broadcasters agreed to refrain from
news-gathering and to limit newscasts to two daily five-minute
bulletins.

These morning and evening bulletins were provided by Associated Press
for a fee, and were restricted to after 9:30 a.m. and after 9 p.m.
(after morning and afternoon newspapers were on the street).

The only other powerful ally to whom the reformers could turn was
newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Despite the urgent
pleas on behalf of non-profit radio by one of his most trusted
advisers, North Carolina's Josephus Daniels, Roosevelt remained silent
on the issue of broadcast policy.

McChesney believes that given the dire economic crisis of the Great
Depression, Roosevelt was reluctant to risk alienating the powerful
broadcast networks on whom his access to the American public depended.

The battle for control of broadcasting ended with passage of the
Communications Act of 1934. The broadcast monopoly had succeeded in
preserving the status quo and having it codified by law. The only
concession to the broadcast reformers was the vague stipulation that
holders of broadcast licenses must serve the the "public interest,
convenience and necessity." Media Reform Revisited

To McChesney's credit, he maintains a scholarly detachment from his
subject throughout the 270 pages of this meticulously researched book.
Readers who make it to the book's concluding chapter, "Rethinking U.S.
Broadcasting History," will be rewarded with an insightful commentary
on how and why the broadcast reformers were "banished from the
historical record," and why their experience is relevant today.

Their banishment is tied to the "unquestioned rule of broadcasting
historiography for decades...by works sponsored by or affiliated
with the commercial broadcasting industry," he writes.

Moreover, the hundreds of departments and schools of journalism that
sprung up in American colleges and universities "were frequently
established at the behest of commercial media and rely upon
maintaining close and cordial relationships with the commercial
media."

And with the industry's half-century of success at identifying its
interests with those of the First Amendment, says McChesney, "Even the
most hard-hitting critic tends to pull punches when the legitimacy of
the corporate media is challenged."

The industry also won the hearts and minds of the public by equating
"capitalism with the free and equal marketplace, the free and equal
marketplace with democracy, and democracy with 'Americanism'." But
this argument may be wearing thin now that TV's "vast wasteland" has
expanded to cable, and public concern about media violence and
sensationalism is mounting.

Today's media reformers, however, are hamstrung by the fact that "U.S.
political culture does not permit any discussion of fundamental
weaknesses in capitalism," warns McChesney. Moreover, "corporate media
have encouraged the belief that even the consideration of alternatives
was tantamount to a call for totalitarianism."

These cultural constraints on thought and expression, he says, have
produced an American political culture "typified by perhaps the
narrowest range of legitimate debate of any democratic nation in the
world, with an attendant degree of citizen apathy, cynicism and
ignorance that, arguably, is unsurpassed."

That's why the industry permits -- if not encourages -- noisy lapdogs
like Rush Limbaugh, while systematically excluding voices which might
challenge its hegemony. Backed by impeccable scholarship, Robert
McChesney's voice deserves to be heard. Media activists and
conscientious journalists and must work to see that it is. And today's
media reformers must work to find kindred spirits among the progeny of
1920s progressive Republicans who saw that monopolistic control of the
media is bad for democracy.

"The Battle for Control of Broadcasting, 1928-1935" explodes the myth
that the radio-TV environment which surrounds us today was produced by
some "natural evolution" of the airwaves nurtured by the inherently
democratic free market.

This realization is especially relevant as Congress and the FCC make
policy for constructing the Information Superhighway. Just as 65 years
ago the industry lobby hid "behind the rhetoric that only 'experts'
were capable of understanding 'complex' policy issues," today's media
managers still work to "keep the preponderance of the American people
ignorant of their right to dictate broadcasting policy."

In 1776, Thomas Paine noted that "a long habit of not thinking a thing
wrong, gives it the superficial appearance of being right." It's the
duty of the media scholars, educators and conscientious journalists,
concludes McChesney, "to relentlessly debunk the myths that provide a
buttress for the existing media and social structure."



(Wally Bowen is executive director of the Asheville-based Citizens for
Media Literacy.)