“And speaking of Russia, what’s going on there? Is anybody paying attention?” Strong asked with bombastic flair. “Hello? This should be front-page news. But you won’t find it in the leftist papers. No, sir. Not on CNN or the so-called progressive — that’s double speak for liberal — talk shows. But, fortunately you’ve come to the right place.” Strong went on to explain how the new Russian president continued to crack down on personal freedoms.
After a few minutes on that topic, he was onto another.
“Communist rebels struck again in Chile. Thirty-four dead freedom fighters, including a missionary.” Again another veiled message, this time for the Christian right. “What year is it there? 1971. President Lamden, why don’t you put them away?
“And then there are those Pakistan and Indian leaders. You pronounce their names, I can’t. The liberals praise them for their courage to make peace. Give me a break. Like they’re really out sipping green tea and playing chess. You know they’re stockpiling more nuclear weapons. And if you think otherwise, then you’ve got to be smoking some really serious cannabis, which, by the way, is illegal. So when those mushroom clouds blow this way — you do understand the wind blows from West to East in the northern hemisphere — who do we thank? Taylor, for putting one over on us when he was president.
“And liberals keep trying to get us to believe that Israel’s prime minister is happier than a clam at high tide. Well, my friends, that’s just wrong.”
If his audience checked the actual New York Times story, the opposite was true. Blanca Kaplov’s troubles were widely reported. But that didn’t matter. Elliott Strong put his claims out over the air, and his listeners took it as gospel.
“Believe me, that place is going to explode like a hot keg and Mister Lamden” — he hated calling Henry Lamden president — “is not going to be the Super Glue to keep things together.
“And Congress? They’re forcing through one piece of anti-individual, big-government legislation after another. The country isn’t going to look the same for your children. We’re going to be living in a country formerly known as the United States of America. Mark my words, this administration is going to get to the 2nd Amendment this time around.” There hadn’t been a word of discussion about banning guns since either Taylor or Lamden took office. “It’s not on the docket yet, but my sources tell me they have it in their sights.
“Which brings me back to what are you going to do about it.” He became more agitated. “You know, I think you really don’t want a strong nation,” he said, a play on words. “Not really. You say you do, but you really don’t. You’re a bunch of sheep.” He could just about hear his viewers chime in, No, we’re not! “Sleepy sheep being herded around by a phantom administration — unelected, yet serving for four years. Four years!” he repeated. “The Lamden-Taylor White House holds you in its powerful grip…not because they have the power. Because you let them!”
Strong paused for maximum impact. “Oh sure, you’re comforted by the illusion that you live in a democracy. You choose to believe that the Constitution — the law of the land — somehow sanctions this government. Every night someone whines, ‘Oh, Elliott, aren’t we a nation by the people?’ Well, how can we be, when we didn’t elect the two men at the very top! Every night someone e-mails me, ‘But Elliott, we are a country for the people.’ But how can we be, when both pretenders have no right to serve us?
“Interesting, isn’t it, how the Lamden administration reads into the Constitution a definition of justice that suits them.” Here he actually ignored Constitutional law. Lamden became president because of the Constitution. And Taylor was confirmed by the Senate, also under guidelines established by the founding fathers and ratified by the states. No matter. He didn’t worry about the truth getting in the way of a good show.
“And they say we live in a republic of laws. Well, my friends, I ask you, again: Who elected them? Not me. Not you. Not one of us. Not a single person, either Republican or Democrat.”
Elliott Strong’s increasingly fiery delivery was drawing record ratings for the radio syndication company that sold his show across the country. As he liked to boast, “Now on three hundred forty-two right-minded stations.”
He’d begun his attacks just ten days after the inauguration. He provided the tantalizing words. His audience ate it up. And Strong’s constituency grew every night. Not since the rhetoric of Father Charles E. Coughlin in the 1920s and ‘30s had anyone turned against a president with such vitriolic fervor. Not Rush, Savage, O’Reilly, or Hannity.
Like the egomaniacal Coughlin, Strong used the airwaves as a bully pulpit, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, politics and opinion, winning converts and driving up ad revenue. It was all as calculated as his decision to broadcast from Lebanon, Kansas.
Elliott Strong’s brand of talk radio existed, in part, because the Fairness Doctrine no longer did.
In 1949, the United States Federal Communication Commission mandated that station license holders were “public trustees.” They had the obligation to provide reasonable opportunity for the open discussion of conflicting points of view on controversial topics.
The policy was born out of concern that broadcasters should not be permitted to use the airwaves to advocate singular political perspectives. The Fairness Doctrine required stations to present opposing points of view. Failing to do so could result in the revocation of an owner’s broadcast license.
The doctrine worked in tandem to Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1937, a federal law, which required stations to offer “equal opportunity” to all legally qualified candidates running for any office if they allowed one candidate unpaid airtime.
The principle was further underscored by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case of Red Lion Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC. The station, licensed to Red Lion Co., had broadcast a “Christian Crusade” program in which an author was attacked. When the author requested airtime under the Fairness Doctrine to respond to the claims, the station refused. The FCC ruled that the station had failed to comply with policy: a decision that was affirmed by the Supreme Court ruling. Red Lion lost the station.
The victory actually scared many stations away from covering any contentious topic. A so-called “chilling effect,” opposite of the FCC’s intention, resulted in less opinion on the airwaves — radio and television.
In the 1980s, deregulation fever swept the country, fueled by the philosophies and policies of the Reagan administration. The new Chairman of the FCC, appointed by President Reagan, vowed to kill the Fairness Doctrine. In 1985, he succeeded. The FCC argued in its “Fairness Report” that the doctrine might indeed have a “chilling effect” on public opinion, and could be in violation of the First Amendment. Two years later, the courts declared in Meredith Corp. v. FCC that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress, and that the commission did not have to enforce all of its provisions. The FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in August 1987, though its dominion over the area of talk was itself debatable.
Today, the broadcasting world is populated by hundreds of TV channels and the proliferation of radio stations. More than ever before. But due to further deregulation and consolidation of ownership, a short list of owners control the vast majority of stations.
Instead of the multitude of perspectives, the airwaves and cable channels are populated with only a few real voices but hundreds of echoes. Legitimate political dialogue has been further eroded through budget restrictions dictated from the top of the vertically integrated companies. Now news is more widely debated than reported. Corporations have determined that it’s far cheaper to have panelists shout at each other across a desk than to actually cover the complexities of a story in the field.