George A. Richards

Much has been written about the pro-fascist, antisemite radio preacher Father Coughlin. (prior post here.) Very little has been written about the man that put him on the radio. The comparisons between Coughlin  and Bill O'Reilly and/or Glenn Beck while sometimes thoughtful, really don't do justice to the vitriolic candor of Coughlin. Today it's unthinkable, but even back then Coughlin's brand of explicit racism was considered unseemly.  Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly et al. rate as merely fear-mongers when compared to Coughlin—who was a genuine hate-monger. But it is sometimes forgotten that there was a money-man behind it all: George A. Richards. If you compare Glenn Beck to Coughlin, you must also compare George A. Richards to Roger Ailes.

 In 1926 WJR-AM was purchased by George A. Richards and associates from the two shareholding companies: Jewett Radio and Phonograph Company and the Detroit Free Press. (Those associates were Leo Fitzpatrick, John Patt, P. M. Thomas and M. R. Mitchell.)  Richards was the president of Pontiac Automobiles for Southern Michigan. He relocated the station  to a street-level studio in his showroom on the Cass Avenue side of the General Motors Building in Detroit. At the time it was still a time-share with WCX-AM. Richards put an end to that in 1929 with an offer to buy them out. and even increased power to 10,000 watts in 1932. He called it the "Goodwill Station."  It wasn't meant to be ironic, but it was.

Set on expansion, he bought WFJC-AM in 1930 from William F. Jones. The station had been founded in 1924 in Cleveland by Stanley Broz as WDBK-AM. It had been moved to Akron in 1927 by Jones who changed the calls to WFJC. Richards moved it back to Cleveland and rechristened it with his own initials WGAR-AM. It signed on in Cleveland December 15, 1930 as a part of the Goodwill Station group.

In June of 1934, Beverly Hills Broadcasting went belly up. It's assets were bought up by the Pacific Southwest Discount Corporation and the sold to in  1936 to Beverly Hills Broadcasting Corporation. Beverly Hills Broadcasting sold one of those assets, KMPC-AM to George A. Richards. It too became a part of the Goodwill Station group.Richards now had stations in Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles. But with exposure comes scrutiny. The antisemitism that was considered "acceptable" prior to WWII became associated with the Nazis, and became unacceptable. Richards didn't budge. His radio stations espoused his beliefs. George A. Richards hated Jews, unions, blacks, communists and possibly most of all...President Roosevelt.

It began to unravel in 1948. A cadre of his own former employees complained to the FCC about his authoritarian tactics. In 1949, Jewish civic organizations began petitioning to revoke The licenses of George A. Richard's stations. The National Community Relations Advisory Council (NCRAC) specifically went after him. They were a coordinating body of eight national Jewish organizations. Richards, savvy as ever, tried to dodge a bullet and transfer control to a trustee board of his own selection. The opinion of NCRAC was that transferring the control from Richards, to the puppets of Richards, was no change at all. More here.

In response, the FCC released a report titled Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees. It took a dim view of such monomania. The FCC began hearings to consider suspending Richards's licenses. Lawyers argued that he had not acted in the public interest. The FCC took testimony from 177 witnesses, the minutes are some 3.5 million words in length. Richards spent millions defending himself. Before a decision could be reached, he died on May 25th 1951. Printers Ink wrote that it was of a "heart condition." His widow began selling off the stations within just a few years. These events set the stage that allowed the Fairness Doctrine to come into existence, something that Richards would have despised.

NARNE to NARND

In the year 1946, John Hogan of 970 WCSH-AM, began a letter-writing campaign. He was sending letters to radio news writers, reporters and editors to propose a national association for radio news editors. Slowly it came together and their first meeting was scheduled for October 24th, 1946.  Sixty five newsmen met at the Allerton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. It began as NARNE, The National Association of Radio News Editors. This was not a meeting of the first group radio newsmen, but it was the first national group. There was already a totally separate group called the Iowa association radio news editors. An article at the  University of Iowa Library website list a historical review detailing the following from those first 72 hours of NARND:

"Committees were set up for Awards and Education. A Membership Committee was established to decide how to handle candidates for membership and a Board of Directors was appointed. The first Directors were John Hogan, John Murphy, Jack Shelley (WHO, Des Moines), Jack Krueger (WTMJ, Milwaukee), Tom Eaton (WTIC, Hartford), Bob Mahoney (KWKH, Shreveport), Les Ford (WGR, Buffalo), Soren Munkhof (WOW, Omaha), Ben Chatfield (WMAZ, Macon), Sig Mickelson (WCCO, Minneapolis), Milo Knutson (KFBI, Wichita), and Dave Kessler (WHAM, Rochester). Officers were John Hogan, President, Sig Mickelson, First Vice-President, Jack Shelley, Second Vice-President, John Murphy, Treasurer, and Edward Wallace (WTAM, Cleveland) Executive Secretary."

They met and conferenced for three days.  In that time their Constitution Committee headed up by John Murphy of WCKY/Cincinnati. wrote their Constitution. John Hogan Chaired the charter convention, and as he was at the epicenter of things he naturally became the first president of what was now NARND. They selected a name for the organization and elected their first officers: 12 members for a Board of Directors,  an Executive Secretary, and four officers. Hogan was re-elected president at their second convention, in Washington D.C. in November of 1947.  He is the only man who ever served two consecutive terms as president.

In a 1947 issue of Billboard discusses a code of ethics being formulated by the "newly formed" association. they list by name the members of the board. It includes: Sereno Gammell of WTHT/ Hartford, Jack Kreuger of WTMJ/Milwaukee, Jack Knell WBT/Charlotte, Soren Munkof WOW/Omaha, and Fred Hinshaw WLBC/Muncie.  The president ot NARNE at the time was still John HoganIn November of 1948 their the third annual convention was held in Saint Louis, MO. At that convention they elected their third President, Sig Mickelson, of WCCO/Minneapolis.

In all this meeting, greeting and convening they did actually have a philosophical purpose. radio News had really proved it's importance as a platform to convey information on par to the newspaper. It's very similar to the way the internet has become a primary conveyance for news now on par with television. NARND wanted essentially to promote it's members occupation. It seems self-serving, but truthfully the power was already there, all that was left were the semantics of recognition. Their interest in professionalism and ethics while laudable was in retrospect, secondary. But I'll quote from their 1946 convention statement anyway.

"...locally originated news should be gathered, written, and presented by station personnel trained in news writing and evaluation; that this news should be written and presented accurately and without bias, to inform as many as possible, and should remain within the bounds of good taste; that the autonomy of the news director and his news department in the radio station should be recognized; that the news director should be directly responsible only to his journalistic principles and ideals, and to the general manager of the station."

It comes back to that first change from NARNE to NARND.They felt there was a difference. The name under which the Cleveland convention gathered was the National Association of Radio News Editors; NARNE. But at that very conference they changed that last word to "Directors."  Long time member Jack Shelly explained it thusly "The change was made because from its start the organization was dedicated to the belief that professional news departments should report directly to station management; that the role of the News Director is a key one; and for many years full voting rights were reserved to persons who directed news operations with their stations, in a deliberate attempt to emphasize the status of such persons."  

In 1950, keeping in line with that thinking,  they ran a successful campaign to get News Directors listed with other station executives in trade publications such as Broadcasting Yearbook. It was about recognition and also in a strange way, political clout. In their first year, then President Hogan told the FCC that a majority of NARND members thought that radio news should be allowed to editorialize.  Even then the direction for news was clear, opinion presented as well as fact. At that first conference one of the panels was named "Shall We Editorialize on the Air?, "News Gathering and Coverage."

We've come full circle today with much editorializing and punditry presented as news, or instead of news. it's hard to remember but in 1949 we were still in the grips of the Fairness Doctrine. Editorializing was a delicate art. the FCC decision  was brand stinking new after the 1949 FCC Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees. (I wrote about that once before here.) What's more interesting is that before the FCC decision in 1949, NARND supports the FCC on editorializing, even  opposing station owners. But after after the decision they the other way.  But it was contentious. Billboard described that November 15th meeting in DC as "acrimonious."  They proposed a resolution to support non-partisan news coverage, essentially a position against editorializing. It was voted down. The war went on for decades.

In 1952 they changed their name to the Radio-Television News Directors Association the RTNDA now accepting both Television news directors and members from abroad, mostly Canada. They've kept that name for half a century, you can visit them here.

Johannes Steel radio commentator

Johannes Steel, a newspaperman and radio commentator whose career was marked by controversy. He was pro-labor, and some called him a communist. Ironically, he self-identified as an Eisenhower republican. He is an interesting newscaster in WWI so interesting in fact you'll see marked differences between his listing on the German Wikipedia page and the English one. To American history he was a crank. A commie, a pro-union loud-mouth. To the Germans he was a Jew, a socialist that fled Germany when the Nazis took power to fling stones at them from afar.

In 1940 Sam Romer wrote a memo to Sidney Hertzberg about anti-war network commentators. Johannes Steel was listed as an "anti-interventionist." His commentary was listed as 7:45 PM daily on WMCA. Of course in Romers thoroughness most of the WMCA staff was listed including: Burnett Hershey, Sidney Mosley and Bruce Oliver were all listed as well. The inclusion is dubious as steel was notoriously anti-Nazi. His 15 minute program was sponsored by the Monarch Wine Company and Simon Akerman clothes.

It was programming like that which put WMCA on the chopping block with the FCC. they fell on the wrong side of the fairness doctrine. I find it interesting that conservatives rail against it today in hyperbole, but in the past they used it to railroad liberals. In 1939 they were even accused of treason. More here.

"Last week station WMCA, New York City, was asked to show cause why its license should not be revoked for violations of the federal communications act of 1934. The Manhattan station allegedly picked up, decoded and broadcast messages by German and British governments to their respective forces. Officials of the station denied the charge but will have to prove the denial in a public hearing in Washington..."

Steel escaped Germany knowing that his membership in the SPD could have led to his demise. He went to France and eventually America where he later became a citizen. He became the foreign editor of The New York Post and a columnist for the Daily Compass. He did news commentary on the Mutual Radio Network. In 1939 he began on air commentaries at WMCA. Sometimes this is listed in his biographies at WHN, but the WHN calls only came into use in 1962. In 1948 he was fired, probably because the Red Channels report tied 34 commie connections to him; more than any other broadcaster. He attribute the firing to pressure from the Catholic Church. In 1949 he took a job commenting for WLIB.

Later in his life he wrote a syndicated financial column in The Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. He died in 1988, at 80 years old.

The Fairness Doctrine and WGCB

I got some terse feedback from "Frank" on Part 5 of my Networks series last week. He doesn't like the fairness doctrine. To be honest, neither do I. But it's not a topic I've covered in any detail before so let's go there. It came from radioland and is fair game. I hope he responds in greater detail.
Frank Charges that the Dems manipulated the Fairness Doctrine to limit the flow of politically conservative views in the media. He is absolutely correct, they did. For example: In 1964 a a Red Lion radio station, 1440 WGCB-AM was challenged in a Fairness Doctrine complaint. It is said that the suit was secretly financed by the DNC. That part is iffy. But it was an absolutely pivotal ruling in future applications of the doctrine.
In a nutshell what happened was that on November 27, 1964, WGCB-AM carried a 15-minute broadcast by the Rev. Billy James Hargis (below) as part of the very conservative "Christian Crusade" series. A book titled "Goldwater-Extremist on the Right" was discussed. Hargis, said some harsh things about the author Mr. Cook, even going as far as to accuse him of being a communist. When Cook heard of the broadcast he concluded that he had been personally attacked and demanded free reply time, which the station refused. The FCC took issue with that. The Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution permitted the FCC to order Red Lion to give free air time to liberals who disagreed with its conservative broadcast content. The Court ruled, in other words, that the federal government could dictate the content of a station’s broadcasting. But had the whole suit been about Cook or defamation of character, Cook could have just sued, and probably would have won. Finer details here,

In all fairness to the Dems, WGCB is at the absolute right-most extreme of the politically motivated christian movement. WGCB-TV airs some "out-there" stuff and gets some real heat from the Anti-defamation Committee for their programming. Some of what they called "free-speech" then would be "hate-speech" now. Things like Holocaust denial, antisemitism, sexism and racism just don't fly in America anymore.

Frank is also correct that the Dems have recently attempted to reintroduce this law. It's now called "H.R. 3302, the Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005" It was introduced by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY). Source here. But it's not just Dems who have an interest in this law!
The Fairness doctrine was introduced in 1949 and it's stated purpose was two-fold:

1. It affirmatively requires that each broadcast licensee carry some coverage of controversial issues of public importance. This ensures that every broadcaster meets its duty to inform the electorate on public issues.
2. It requires reasonable balance in the coverage of these issues in a station's overall programming.

So why would this favor the Democrats? Only because they had a liberal Supreme court at the time. By the late 1980s When the gavel had swung the other way a new bill to place the Fairness Doctrine back into federal law passed the House by 3 to 1, and the Senate by nearly 2 to 1, but it was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan. Among those voting for the bill were Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). REPUBLICANS! Today with a divided, but right-leaning Supreme Court you see yet a new approach to the media control.

The Bush white house was caught bribing/paying radio hosts and newspaper columnists to promote their policies. Then we found out about Jeff Gannon, the Whitehouse press plant. @ years ago Bush signed an executive order to keep the political writing of authors from "hostile nations" out of our bookstores. Foreign authors now need to pass through an approval process at the Federal Office of Foreign Assets Control. Yeah, seriously. The efforts of both parties to control and limit the flow of information to the public are unconscionable. If I wrote Part 5 in 1996 instead of 2006 it would be just as apt. This is not a simple battle over bad legislation, these are all attempts by political groups to control what information you ingest in an effort to control what you think.