-
6. Four Crises in Television
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
6. Four Crises In Television McCARTHY'S RISE to national prominence coincided with the explosive growth of television in the United States. In February 1950, when he spoke at Wheeling, there were only 98 television stations and 3,700,000 receivers, and radio was by far the most prevalent form of broadcasting; there were 2,029 stations and 83 million receivers; 94 percent of American families had at least one radio in the home. But people were buying television sets as fast as they could get them, and by the end of 1950 there were 10 million sets and 106 stations in 65 cities. By the end of 1954, the year that McCarthy's appearances on the television screen became more important than the reporting of his activities by newspapers, there were 35 million sets in operation, and with 413 stations in 273 cities, television coverage extended to all but the most remote corners of the nation.1 McCarthy's propaganda techniques had forced newspapers and wire services to reexamine their practices and to make greater use of interpretive reporting. His effect on television was equally important, and his aggressive efforts to use the new medium for his own ends forced networks and stations into major policy decisions. The broadcasting media were ripe for manipulation. In 1947 three former FBI agents had begun publication of a four-page weekly newsletter called Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism.2 The agents collected lists from government, congressional, and legislative sources and published "citations" of the "front" connections or activities of prominent citizens. A "front," by their definition, was 176 Four Crises in Television 177 any organization that "helped Communism." Their lists went far beyond the attorney general's list of subversive organizations; in 1948 Counterattack published a list of 192 organizations it considered "fronts," only 73 of which were on the attorney general's list. At first the publication was directed to businessmen in general, but it gradually came to concentrate on broadcasting, a target in the public eye. Counterattack not only listed names; it also urged people to complain to broadcasting companies and to sponsors of programs so as to drive the persons "cited" out of their jobs and out of broadcasting. People did complain, and performers were dropped from programs because they were "controversial." For the publishers of Counterattack, who also offered to investigate program talent for sponsors, it was a profitable business; other groups entered the field, some for profit and some for the sake of wielding power. On 22 June 1950, American Business Consultants, the publishers of Counterattack, issued a 215-page book called "Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television." As perpetrators of this infiltration it listed 151 persons-actors, actresses, writers, musicians, playwrights, directors-some of the best-known and most-respected people in the industry. The editors did not say that everyone listed was a Communist, only that they had helped advance "communist objectives." Everyone on the list was affected by the publication; not all of them lost jobs, but many did. Some went to Europe; one committed suicide. Networks and advertising agencies, seeking to avoid further attacks, established their own "security" departments to screen out "controversial" persons; the blacklist was institutionalized . McCarthy's principal benefit from this disarray was in the gift of free time on the air, but he also made sporadic forays into the affairs of broadcasting, seemingly intended to keep the medium on the defensive . "We have a vast number of Communists in press and radio," he said in a radio interview on 18 May 1952, citing Louis Budenz, former editor of the Daily Worker, as his source.3 On June 30, the magazine Broadcasting-Telecasting warned its readers, "Don't kiss off request of Sen. Joseph McCarthy for list of State Dept. contacts with radio-TV newsmen." On July 5 McCarthy introduced legislation to ban the showing of films written by supporters of "Communists and Communist-fronts."4 In October he threatened to ask the Federal Communications Commission to revoke the license of KING-TV, Seattle , after that station had refused to broadcast a prepared speech unless he deleted statements that the station's attorneys considered libelous, but he did not actually file a complaint.5 In December he announced that as chairman of the Senate Committee on Expenditures [3.238.135.30] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:58 GMT) 178 JOE McCARTHY AND THE PRESS in the Executive Department he would investigate the...