Was there a "Fox News" back in the day?

[31 Model A]

"I don't listen to any talk-radio program because I value my radio too much to be incited into attacking it with a sledgehammer".

I enjoy your replies. You have a great way in expressing your thoughts. I think it's called 'wit'.....................:eusa_clap

 

[Edward]

But this is my point. All news is Fox News in its own special way. Nothing should be discarded or trusted simply because of the source...even if it's from the Daily Mail. Were people sold on the idea that "their" news was The Truth and dismissive and boorish in their debates?

The British Daily Mail? That particular newspaper is so notorious for muckraking and distorting stories that while one can never completely dismiss the content, any and all Mail reports should rightly be treated with caution.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The British Daily Mail? That particular newspaper is so notorious for muckraking and distorting stories that while one can never completely dismiss the content, any and all Mail reports should rightly be treated with caution.

So kinda like Fox News.

 

[31 Model A]

So kinda like Fox News.

and the rest of them...NBC, ABC, CNN, etc.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think any paper published today equals the sleaziness of Bernarr Macfadden's "New York Evening Graphic." Every disgusting excess of cheap tabloid journalism came to full flower in that paper, which ran from 1924 to 1932. Macfadden was a health cultist with delusions of someday running for President, and he started the paper as a platform for his ambitions -- anything or anyone whom Macfadden approved was promoted in the paper, anything or anyone he opposed was ridiculed. And knowing that sex sells, Macfadden encouraged his editors to go for broke with every dripping sex scandal of the twenties getting full play. When photos weren't available, the Graphic had no compunctions about manufacturing them, which led to some real lulus.

The Graphic was quite likely the least-respected news source ever published in the United States, not excepting modern supermarket rags. Even its target audience -- working-class New Yorkers -- considered it a joke, and certainly nobody ever took it seriously as a legitimate newspaper.

 

[tropicalbob]

Yes, it was called "Dr. Goebbell's Chamber of Radio." Didn't last as long as Fox, though.

 

[Edward]

So kinda like Fox News.

Less extreme, but a similarly low level of "journalism".

 

[HadleyH]

lol

what's so funny

 

[31 Model A]

Yes, it was called "Dr. Goebbell's Chamber of Radio." Didn't last as long as Fox, though.

So didn't CBS after broadcasting nine (1930-39) years of Father Edward Coughlin rants and raves about Jews and his pro-Hitler stance.

 

[HadleyH]

Less extreme, but a similarly low level of "journalism".

Low level of journalism according to whom? to you?


I am beginning to find this thread very one-sided!



Not nice.

 

[rjb1]

Whenever any of my acquaintances goes into a rant about all the lies, distortions, and true evil that emanates from Fox News, I always say, "You clearly know a lot about Fox News. You must watch it all the time."
Answer (sputter, sputter): "No, I never have and I never will!"
"Okay..."
(Maybe if they think about it for a while they may get my point...)

 

[31 Model A]

.

Fox news is by far not the only one who has done it

.

I agree, but as far as severity...........depends upon one's political views and party that defines one's animosity for news channels and what they report whether it be truth or not, it might be false to you but total truth to another.

 

[LizzieMaine]

So didn't CBS after broadcasting nine (1930-39) years of Father Edward Coughlin rants and raves about Jews and his pro-Hitler stance.

CBS banned Coughlin in 1931, adopting a policy which forbade any paid religious programming on the network. From 1932 to 1936, and again from 1937 to 1940, Coughlin assembled his own ad-hoc network of stations organized by the Aircasters, Inc. advertising agency of Detroit. All of these stations were paid full commercial rates to air the Coughlin broadcasts.

When Coughlin began his most anti-Semitic series of broadcasts in the fall of 1938, he was dropped by his New York outlet, WMCA. For the rest of his radio run the closest he could get to New York City was WHBI, a tiny 250-watt daytime-only station in Newark. He constantly lost outlets during 1939, until by 1940 he was attracting less than a million listeners. Even America First, home of such anti-Semites as Charles Lindbergh, wanted nothing to do with Coughlin by this point.

(I've listened to, and annotated, all surviving Coughlin broadcasts. I don't recommend this task to anyone.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing with Fox news is that it was specifically organized to be an outlet for a certain political point of view. Any doubt about this was dispersed when Roger Ailes, the noted Republican media consultant who had been deeply involved with GOP presidential candidacies and administrations as far back as Nixon, was hired to be the Fox CEO. It was pretty clear when that was announced exactly what the channel would do and who its target audience would be. Nobody observing broadcast journalism at the time ever expected anything other than what it turned out to be. Ailes continues to run the network to this day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, getting back to biased news in the Era, nothing in print or on the air approached the newsreels. In the US, there were five major newsreel operations -- Pathe, Fox Movietone, Hearst Metrotone/News of the Day, Paramount, and Universal -- and each of them was thoroughly dominated by the Hollywood movie establishment. Pathe, additionally, was heavily influenced by the corporate agenda at RCA, which controlled the newsreel thru its RKO wing, and the Hearst reels were jointly controlled by MGM and the Hearst organization. Each reel was notorious for being used to promote the specific agendas of the moguls in charge of each studio, and nobody ever took them seriously as a legitimate source of in-depth news. Even "The March of Time," the closest thing to a regular documentary newsreel, was dominated by Henry Luce's personal agenda.

These influences were most obvious during the labor wars of 1936-37, when footage was routinely edited and manipulated to put unions and union organizers in a bad light. This produced a violent backlash in many union towns where union members booed, and in some cases, physically forced the reels off the screen -- forcing the Hearst reel, in the end, to drop the "Hearst" name from its logo in an attempt to evade mass boycotts.

 

[31 Model A]

CBS banned Coughlin in 1931, adopting a policy which forbade any paid religious programming on the network. From 1932 to 1936, and again from 1937 to 1940, Coughlin assembled his own ad-hoc network of stations organized by the Aircasters, Inc. advertising agency of Detroit. All of these stations were paid full commercial rates to air the Coughlin broadcasts.

When Coughlin began his most anti-Semitic series of broadcasts in the fall of 1938, he was dropped by his New York outlet, WMCA. For the rest of his radio run the closest he could get to New York City was WHBI, a tiny 250-watt daytime-only station in Newark. He constantly lost outlets during 1939, until by 1940 he was attracting less than a million listeners. Even America First, home of such anti-Semites as Charles Lindbergh, wanted nothing to do with Coughlin by this point.

(I've listened to, and annotated, all surviving Coughlin broadcasts. I don't recommend this task to anyone.)

I stand corrected but CBS wanted that commercial money, if Coughlin would had agreed, would Coughlin had stayed on? After all, he did support Roosevelt ....at first.

 

[HadleyH]

The thing with Fox news is that it was specifically organized to be an outlet for a certain political point of view. Any doubt about this was dispersed when Roger Ailes, the noted Republican media consultant who had been deeply involved with GOP presidential candidacies and administrations as far back as Nixon, was hired to be the Fox CEO. It was pretty clear when that was announced exactly what the channel would do and who its target audience would be. Nobody observing broadcast journalism at the time ever expected anything other than what it turned out to be. Ailes continues to run the network to this day.

If that's the case, then we are not going to deny that the same applies to CNN...only in reverse!

Is it not CNN a liberal network? Founded by him - most liberal of liberals - Mr Ted Turner?

So lets be fair here. What good for the goose is good for the gander.



Please carry on with back in the era.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I stand corrected but CBS wanted that commercial money, if Coughlin would had agreed, would Coughlin had stayed on? After all, he did support Roosevelt ....at first.

William Paley personally banned Coughlin from CBS. No amount of money would have changed his mind. NBC already had such a ban in place due to an incident involving Judge Rutherford of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, who had bought time on NBC in 1927 for a speech denouncing big religion, big business, and all human governments as agents of Satan. Needless to say, RCA didn't appreciate that, and the network never took another paid religious broadcast.

The only network which did accept paid religious broadcasts for the bulk of the thirties, Mutual, was still very small potatoes in Coughlin's day, and he was able to get a better audience assembling his a la carte network.

Coughlin strongly supported FDR in 1932, but when Roosevelt refused to appoint him to a Cabinet position, he decided that the New Deal was "the Jew Deal," and that was the end of that. Coughlin hoped to promote Huey Long as an independent presidential candidate against FDR in 1936, but Dr. Weiss took care of that -- so the Political Padre instead recruited an obscure congressman named William Lemke to run on his "Union Party" ticket. Lemke made no impact whatsoever, and Coughlin retired from radio in a snit, not to return to the air until several months after the election. He never recovered the level of popularity he'd held in 1930-32, and by 1940 was of no interest to anyone except the FBI -- which believed he was getting funding from Berlin --and his bishop, who finally put him off the air for good in 1942.

 

[Guttersnipe]

He never recovered the level of popularity he'd held in 1930-32, and by 1940 was of no interest to anyone except the FBI -- which believed he was getting funding from Berlin --and his bishop, who finally put him off the air for good in 1942.

I recall reading somewhere that (relatively) recent archival discoveries show Coughlin did indeed receive funding from Nazi-linked sources, albeit in rather indirect manners. Have you heard about this, or perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Donald Warren talked about that in his book "Radio Priest" back in 1999 -- I don't have my copy right handy, but I believe he was able to document a link directly back to Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. If I'm remembering correctly, another priest was being used as an intermediary/bagman. Coughlin was also using materials originating with the Ministry of Propaganda in preparing his broadcasts during 1939 -- which becomes quite obvious when you listen to them, especially the one in which he justifies the German takeover of Czechoslovakia.