Heather Hendershot's Colloquium

What's Fair on the Air? Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest

Following Barry Goldwater's defeat in the 1964, there was an explosion in American right-wing broadcasting, most of it airing on small, non-network radio stations.  Hendershot's talk will center on two of the most prominent figures of this era, H.L. Hunt and Dan Smoot.  Working together initially in the 1950s, Hunt and Smoot produced "fair and balanced" public affairs programming--actually arch-conservative, but designed to satisfy the FCC public service requirements.  By the 1960s, however, both had veered overtly right.  How did such programming proliferate?  How did the Fairness Doctrine finally shut down right-wing broadcasting in the early 70s, and what political and policy changes enabled the reemergence of such programming in the Reagan years?