0:00

On this week's On Media,

0:02

we conclude our investigation into

0:04

talk radio with a question. Is

0:07

the repeated broadcasting of disinformation,

0:10

election lies, and conspiracy theories

0:12

legal?

0:13

The FCC's distortion

0:16

policy prohibits deliberate staging,

0:19

and falsifying of news.

0:20

So, case closed, right? Actually

0:24

no. and 2018, the

0:27

FCC has ruled against broadcasters in

0:29

only eight of 128 published cases of distortion. And

0:35

many, many more cases without even investigating

0:37

them. In other words, no

0:39

one has lost their license specifically

0:42

due to only a violation

0:44

of the new distortion rule.

0:45

Are there any solutions available

0:48

to right the ship and bring some

0:50

kind of balance back to the public airwaves?

0:53

Lots more questions and even some

0:55

answers this.

1:03

Listener supported WNYC

1:06

Studios

1:10

From WNYC in New York,

1:12

this is On the Media. I'm Brooke Two

1:15

weeks ago on the show we introduced you

1:17

to Salem Media, a company

1:19

that among many other things operates

1:22

a network of Christian talk radio

1:24

stations whose hosts have disseminated

1:26

the big lie and other conspiracy

1:29

theories. We learned about Salem's

1:31

relationship with right-wing political

1:33

strategists, pollsters, and big donors.

1:36

don't want everybody to vote. Elections

1:39

are not won by a majority of people.

1:41

They never have been from the beginning of our country

1:43

and they are not now.

1:45

Then on last week's show

1:47

we took a detour from the Salem story

1:50

to examine the rise the right on talk

1:52

radio writ large and how years

1:54

of erosion of FCC guidelines

1:57

and goodwill led to the talk

1:59

radio lens.

1:59

that we have today. What

2:02

we found was that conservative

2:04

talk dominated liberal or

2:06

progressive talk by ten to one.

2:08

This week we're airing the final

2:10

installment of our investigation. In

2:13

this episode, Katie Thornton

2:15

goes in search of answers to the

2:18

many questions that came up as

2:20

she reported the story of how our public

2:22

airwaves are being used and she

2:24

gets to put some of those questions

2:27

to a man who's very well placed to

2:29

answer

2:29

them. But for now, here's

2:31

our reporter Katie Thornton.

2:38

A couple of years ago, on a long and lonely

2:41

drive through northern Minnesota, I

2:43

flipped on the radio to keep me company. My

2:46

car stereo looped around the FM dial

2:48

and stopped on the one station strong

2:50

enough for it to pick up.

2:51

Welcome to the Focus on the Family

2:53

broadcast. Helping families... It was playing

2:56

focus on the family. And the Lord's servant

2:58

must not be correlated... The long-standing evangelical

3:01

anti-LGBTQ show. That's also

3:03

a long-time paying ministry on Salem

3:05

stations.

3:06

Until God helped him to see that

3:08

homosexuality is incompatible with

3:11

Scripture. And I listened. Because

3:13

I was curious, but also because

3:16

it was a long ride. And

3:18

that's what was on. Our responsibility

3:19

as Christians to keep the main

3:22

thing the main thing that is loving

3:24

others through Christ.

3:28

Radio is familiar,

3:30

personal. The hosts are with you as you

3:33

drink your morning coffee, in your car,

3:35

on your commute. They're in the kitchen with you

3:37

while you cook. You're definitely on first

3:39

name basis with them. Even the

3:41

national hosts might voice an ad for the

3:44

tire shop down the block. Radio

3:47

is intimate. I love it. And

3:49

so does this guy. Hi

3:51

Katie. Hello Mr. Boys. Can

3:53

you hear me? I can hear you. I can

3:56

hear you. Okay. You

3:59

remember Phil Bo-

3:59

Salem's senior vice president

4:02

of talk. He's the guy in episode

4:04

one who said this

4:05

about Donald Trump. We call him the

4:07

gift that keeps on giving. This guy

4:09

right here is a game changer for our

4:12

format. And this

4:14

about the medium of radio. It's

4:16

almost better to say it on the air than

4:18

to post it in a tweet, because you post it in a tweet.

4:21

It's out there for the end of time. To say it on the

4:23

air, maybe they didn't hear it.

4:27

But before we hear from Boyce, Let me

4:29

bring you up to speed on Salem.

4:32

In episode one, we met the

4:34

co-founders, Stuart Epperson and Edward

4:36

Atsinger. Well, at the start of this

4:38

year, 83-year-old Atsinger,

4:41

who was still CEO, became executive

4:43

chairman of the board. Epperson,

4:45

who had been chairman, is now chairman emeritus.

4:48

As long time head of Salem's radio division,

4:51

David Sentrella took over as CEO. But

4:54

even with these changes at the masthead, it's

4:56

business as usual at Salem. They

4:59

bought a few new stations this year. They

5:01

still operate some of the country's largest

5:03

conservative news sites, and

5:05

tons of Christian websites and services

5:07

selling sermons. Today,

5:10

Salem syndicates their programs to over 3,000 stations.

5:14

Between those and the stations they own, that

5:16

means their programs can be heard on about one

5:18

in every five radio stations

5:20

in this country. And though they've still

5:23

got that pending defamation suit from

5:25

a former executive at Dominion voting systems,

5:28

and a new

5:28

one from one of the supposed mules in

5:31

their supposed documentary 2000 Mules,

5:33

their host can still be found promoting

5:36

lies about election fraud.

5:37

What we've just seen in the midterms, which

5:39

is called stealing, is a moral

5:41

issue. It's not a political issue. Anybody

5:44

who thinks Kerry Lake lost, John

5:47

Federman won, I don't think

5:49

so. I think most Americans know.

5:50

That's Eric Metaxas. You know,

5:52

from Veggie Tales?

5:54

Metaxas is actually something of an outlier

5:56

on this one. This is for on Salem, talkers

5:59

like newer host

5:59

Brandon Tatum, while not exactly

6:02

denying that the midterms were stolen,

6:04

have tweaked the messaging. Stop

6:06

talking about they stole every election. If

6:09

they don't cheat in every election that has ever existed,

6:12

what you gonna do about it? Unless

6:14

you have clear evidence, leave that out.

6:17

Because what happens is people say, I'm not gonna vote.

6:20

Why would I vote in a cheating anyway? Lest

6:23

this be

6:23

read as a shift to a more moderate tone,

6:26

earlier this year, Tatum retweeted

6:28

a claim that, quote, 9-11

6:30

was an inside job, just

6:32

like COVID. Meanwhile,

6:35

internally, employees have been giving money

6:37

to the company's own political action committee,

6:39

supporting conservative causes and candidates.

6:42

And Salem's hosts still regularly

6:44

in vain against the COVID vaccine and climate

6:47

change, spread hateful rhetoric

6:49

about LGBTQ people, and preach

6:51

right wing conspiracies like the Great

6:53

Replacement Theory.

6:54

I believe that this bottleneck is intentional

6:57

to try to create an argument for mass immigration.

7:00

Remember, almost everything the other side tries

7:02

to advocate for is around expanding

7:04

the amount of people coming into the

7:06

country. We're going to draw the connections between

7:09

the environmentalist lobby, the

7:11

Greta Thunbergs of the world, the AOCs,

7:15

and COVID. Nothing

7:17

Americans could do would help

7:20

this country as much

7:22

as taking their kids out of

7:24

the schools

7:24

of America. We disagree vehemently

7:28

with the lie of transgenderism

7:30

and the lie that marriage can be redefined.

7:33

Any unjustified murder

7:35

is tragic, but the same evil

7:38

that was perpetuated against the victims

7:41

of the Colorado Springs Nightclub is the exact

7:44

same perpetuated against

7:46

victims every day day who were unborn

7:49

children in the womb.

7:59

anticipated that he, as an executive, would

8:02

put a bit of distance between himself and

8:04

the rhetoric his hosts broadcast, maybe

8:06

some deflection, I thought it was likely

8:09

I'd be faced with a brick wall of

8:11

professionalism. I mean, Boyce is

8:13

very good at talking. He's shaped the

8:15

careers of some of the biggest talkers in the history

8:18

of radio. But what I didn't expect

8:21

was the affability and the surprisingly

8:24

on-brand answers I got.

8:27

We covered a lot of ground from Salem's

8:29

mission to the new audiences they're appealing

8:31

to, to some points of a little

8:33

more contention.

8:35

So let's get into some segments of our interview.

8:38

To begin, Mr.

8:40

Boyce, I would love to just have you introduce yourself.

8:43

Tell me who you are and what you do. Okay.

8:46

My name is Phil Boyce. I'm Senior

8:48

Vice President, spoken word for Salem.

8:51

I manage the Salem radio network,

8:54

the Salem podcast network,

8:56

Salem news channel,

8:58

and I am a talent recruiter

9:00

and coordinator. So basically

9:02

anything spoken word at Salem,

9:05

you would go through me.

9:07

In your tenure, you've added some new

9:09

talent to the Salem lineup. Dr. Sebastian

9:11

Gorka, Eric Metaxas, Charlie Kirk,

9:13

most recently Brandon Tatum. I'm wondering

9:16

what you looked for in your new

9:18

hosts. What made them great Salem hosts?

9:21

Well, I have a track

9:24

record of finding and

9:26

grooming talk radio talent.

9:29

You go all the way back to WJR

9:31

in Detroit. I found Mitch Albom. When

9:34

I got to New York at WABC, I

9:36

found Sean Hannity. I found Mark

9:39

Levin. I brought Mike Gallagher

9:41

over to WABC. And

9:43

you asked me what it is that I look

9:46

for. I look for a host who wakes

9:48

up every day with a show screaming to

9:50

get off their chest. Somebody

9:52

who has something to say, knows how to say

9:54

it, and beyond that

9:57

it's all more of an instinct on my part.

10:00

You know, in Salem's 10 Ks,

10:02

Salem reports that you are, quote, fundamentally

10:05

committed to programming and content emphasizing

10:07

Christian values, family themes and conservative

10:10

news, and that Salem's, quote, commitment

10:12

to these values means that we may choose

10:14

not to switch to other formats or pursue potentially

10:17

more profitable business opportunities in response

10:19

to changes in audience preferences. And

10:22

I had asked in email if the political programming

10:24

and the religious programming

10:25

was ever sort of at odds with

10:27

one another. the political

10:29

programming is at odds with the Christian programming.

10:34

It's not. I'll

10:38

try to give you a little bit more in-depth

10:40

on that. Salem's

10:42

basic format, the format that started

10:45

the company, is what we call CTT,

10:48

Christian Teach and Talk. It's basically

10:51

an all-Christian, all-the-time format that

10:54

helps people accept the challenges

10:56

of their life through a Christian worldview.

10:59

Maybe you don't know this, but a

11:01

lot of the Christian Teach and Talk listeners

11:04

are conservative politically.

11:06

Not all of them, but a lot of them are.

11:09

And if you look at the Newstalk format,

11:12

a lot of the Newstalk listeners are

11:15

either Christian or Jewish or have

11:17

some kind of a faith in their

11:19

life. So I don't

11:22

find there's any conflict or any

11:24

disagreement between the two. I just

11:26

think it would be a misinterpretation of what

11:29

those listeners expect out of the speaker for

11:31

you to think otherwise.

11:32

Just to dig a little bit deeper,

11:35

you know it's pretty rare that in a publicly traded

11:37

company you see in a 10K a statement that you

11:39

may pursue a less profitable

11:41

option. So I was very curious if that had come up

11:43

within your tenure.

11:45

There is something different about Salem that

11:48

I think you need to understand. The

11:50

difference with Salem is,

11:52

even though we always want to make money,

11:55

and we do make money. We're

11:57

in this to save America.

13:58

see the

14:00

work that you're doing as sort of similar

14:03

comparable to what an outlet

14:06

like the New York Times,

14:06

the Washington Post is doing. Is

14:08

it entertainment or is it journalism? Well,

14:12

it is entertaining. It is informing.

14:16

My hosts are not particularly journalist,

14:18

although they sometimes will use journalistic

14:21

tactics to tell their stories. My

14:24

hosts are They're storytellers,

14:26

they're opinion makers,

14:28

they are thought leaders,

14:30

and I think there's room for all

14:32

of that. I think somebody has

14:34

to tell the other side.

14:36

Otherwise, we'll continue to drift

14:38

to the left to the point where I worry about

14:41

the future of our country.

14:43

Salem, under your leadership,

14:45

has been doing very well.

14:47

You've had some record years. Is

14:50

that because of the sort of diversification platforms

14:53

that you all have gotten into that you say that?

14:54

Exactly. It is because of the

14:57

diversification because we're not just

14:59

a radio company. We built the

15:01

SalemNow.com platform which

15:03

is our video on-demand platform and

15:06

then we built the Salem News Channel which

15:08

is our OTT television network

15:11

with a TV network 24 7 3 6 5 of

15:15

conservative content with using

15:17

some of the same radio hosts that you hear on

15:20

Salem Radio Network. Salem is also into publishing.

15:22

You can read us in our books. We built

15:25

the Salem Podcast Network, which

15:27

is now, I think, 25 different

15:29

podcasters. With podcasting, we've

15:31

been able to reach a much younger audience.

15:34

Julie Hartman, she just graduated

15:36

from Harvard, and

15:38

she's reaching a demographic that we have

15:40

to reach young females. You're

15:43

going to see us expand in that platform

15:45

and reach new people that maybe they

15:48

don't even know how to find the AM band on

15:50

their car radio. Maybe they

15:52

think that AM button on their car

15:54

dashboard means morning. I don't know, but

15:57

it It doesn't, it means I am.

18:01

This

18:02

week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, staff writer

18:04

Gia Tolentino talks about the craze

18:06

surrounding the weight loss drug, Ozempic.

18:09

It makes you feel full. You know, quite simply,

18:11

they can't eat as much. One doctor that I spoke

18:13

to compared it to a turkey dinner

18:16

and a pen.

18:17

Gia Tolentino on the use and misuse

18:19

of Ozempic. That's the New Yorker Radio

18:21

Hour from WNYC Studios. Listen

18:24

wherever you get your podcasts.

18:31

Hi I'm Chrissy Clark, host of The

18:33

Uncertain Hour, Marketplace's award-winning

18:35

podcast about obscure policies, forgotten

18:38

histories, and why America's like this.

18:41

This season we're exploring the welfare-to-work

18:43

industrial complex, how today's

18:45

cash welfare system requires people

18:48

to work in exchange for help, how

18:50

for-profit companies take in millions of dollars

18:52

running that system and why that matters

18:54

for all of us. Listen to The Uncertain

18:57

Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

19:00

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

19:02

We're in the middle of Katie's discussion

19:05

with Salem CEO Phil Boyce.

19:07

Here's Katie.

19:08

Let's talk about the Spanish language programming

19:11

and what the goals are. We think

19:13

that Hispanic people generally,

19:16

by nature,

19:17

lean more conservative. They're

19:20

generally

19:20

more family valued. They,

19:23

in many cases, are more pro-life.

19:26

They're hard workers. They're entrepreneurial.

19:29

And they just naturally believe in family. We'd

19:31

like to see more conservative talk

19:34

be made available to the Spanish audience.

19:36

We think that they're natural candidates for

19:38

the conservative movement, and we want to

19:40

provide them more information to

19:43

be that way.

19:44

Despite this wildly stereotypical,

19:47

monolithic, and transactional understanding

19:49

of Spanish-speaking audiences, Salem

19:51

already has a couple of stations that broadcast

19:54

in Spanish. They recently acquired two

19:56

more, both in South Florida, And earlier

19:58

this year, they were on a cusp of of buying 18 more

20:01

spread out across 10 different cities. But

20:04

they were outbid by a newly formed group called

20:06

the Latino Media Network. Most

20:08

of the group identify as liberal, but not all.

20:11

The purchase was made in part with money from a

20:13

fund supported

20:13

by George Soros, which

20:15

has led to some furious tweets about how

20:17

the FCC is allowing a leftist

20:20

takeover of the airwaves.

20:22

And while Phil Boyce didn't go that far,

20:24

he was not happy about the purchase.

20:27

They want to do

20:29

for the liberal side what we wanted to do

20:31

for the conservative side. I think

20:33

they're going to be the opposite of us. And

20:35

I think it's going to be bad. How so? How

20:37

is it going to be bad? Yeah. I don't

20:40

think that they're going to be truthful with the

20:42

Hispanic population they're talking to.

20:46

There was one last thing I really wanted

20:49

to talk with Boyce about. In our email

20:51

exchanges before this interview, I told him

20:53

I was planning to ask him explicitly about

20:55

what I called disproven falsehoods

20:58

about the 2020 election.

21:00

But Boyce took issue with that characterization.

21:03

He wrote, quote, these are not disproven

21:06

and these are not falsehoods.

21:08

There is proof that there were shenanigans

21:10

played

21:11

and my company bankrolled a movie called 2000 Mules

21:14

and we showed the evidence on screen. And

21:17

I challenged you, Katie, to go see it. Have you had

21:19

a chance to see it?

21:20

I did. Yes. Yes, I have seen it. All

21:22

right, good. So what you saw

21:24

there was evidence that something

21:27

was going on in the 2020 election

21:29

So I do think it's important to point out that many

21:32

people tech experts and others have challenged

21:35

the methodology Behind the film

21:37

saying that it's impossible to prove using that

21:39

geo tracking data that the

21:42

people were actually going

21:44

Directly to the drop boxes and it

21:46

was argued in the film that people went to multiple drop boxes

21:48

and this was caught on video It was never shown.

21:51

Cases that were brought up in the movie went to the Georgia Bureau

21:53

of Investigation.

21:54

You know, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation

21:56

has said that there is not a case. you

21:58

do have

21:59

fact checkers that are denying it and they're

22:02

giving a variety of reasons why this

22:05

bit of evidence or that bit of evidence should be

22:07

discredited. By the way, all the fact

22:09

checkers are liberal so it's in their best

22:11

interest to discredit the movie.

22:13

I do just want to sort of clarify

22:16

you said that your listeners believe

22:18

there were shenanigans and that Salem bankrolled

22:20

this film to prove that. Does Salem

22:23

leadership feel that those

22:25

claims of election fraud are factual?

22:29

You know, I don't think we have an official

22:32

statement on that

22:33

other than to say

22:35

that

22:36

shenanigans were played in the election. You

22:39

can take different opinions about it, whether or not

22:41

it was enough to overturn the presidential

22:43

election. Our opinions are

22:46

just that. They are opinions. My

22:48

hosts are paid to express their opinions.

22:51

You know, you mentioned this is a matter of a differing

22:53

opinion. Do you feel that this is then a matter

22:55

of opinion rather than fact? Let's

22:57

talk about opinion versus fact. One

22:59

of the things you said in your email to me was

23:01

you wanted to ask me about misinformation

23:04

or disinformation on the part of my hosts.

23:07

And I responded that what some

23:09

people on the left call disinformation

23:11

or misinformation is nothing more than a disagreement

23:14

of opinion. It's a matter of opinion.

23:17

My host has a right to investigate

23:19

and look at a particular situation, come

23:22

up with their conclusion and state their

23:24

opinion. And it's not right to call

23:27

that disinformation and then

23:29

try to silence that information.

23:32

Imagine how boring this country would be if there

23:34

was only one opinion allowed.

23:36

Of course. But respectfully, I would

23:38

say in my listening, I found that hosts are not necessarily

23:41

sharing these assertions of election fraud

23:43

as a matter of opinion. They're sharing them as a

23:45

matter of fact, saying, you know, we have this

23:47

proof. There's a section within 2000 mules

23:50

where the Nestor Sousa is sort of recapping the facts

23:53

about widespread coordinated election

23:55

fraud, not opinion,

23:57

but facts. Do you think that

23:59

listeners... understand that this is opinion?

24:02

Well, it is opinion based on

24:05

what my host believed to be factual.

24:08

We don't want to be wrong. We want to be right, but

24:10

our opinions are what's important

24:13

and we hope that our opinions will persuade

24:15

people that we're right.

24:16

What was going through your head when January 6 was happening?

24:19

Did it

24:20

cross your mind to possibly

24:23

ask hosts to change their content?

24:26

No, it did not cross my mind

24:28

to ask hosts to change their content because

24:30

I didn't hear anything from my host that

24:32

I could not defend. I would

24:34

never send an email out like one company

24:36

did to all my hosts saying, don't

24:39

talk about this or that. Or in

24:41

this particular instance, they said, don't

24:44

talk about the 2020 election. The

24:46

memo came down from Cumulus, I

24:48

believe. What did go through my mind

24:51

was a feeling of sadness

24:53

because I know many of those hosts that are

24:55

being impacted over there. And I I feel bad

24:57

that they're being put in this position, that

24:59

they're disabjoining to me and I'm saddened by it.

25:02

So the sadness was for

25:04

the host that they couldn't speak

25:07

about that? Okay. Look,

25:09

we're not trying to overturn that election. You

25:12

can't get Biden out of the White House now. It's

25:14

too late. But certainly

25:16

things happened in that election that shouldn't

25:18

have happened. And you can make

25:21

sure that those shenanigans that were played aren't

25:23

played again.

25:23

Is that a hoped for outcome

25:26

of the film to be able to strengthen

25:28

some of those so-called voter integrity laws.

25:31

Absolutely. Now, the state of Georgia

25:33

did pass a voter integrity law last year.

25:36

All Georgia did was try to make

25:38

their elections more secure so

25:41

that the right people would vote. It

25:43

was not voter suppression. As Biden

25:46

called it, it was not Jim Crow 2.0. It

25:48

was actually the right thing to keep the

25:51

right people voting.

25:52

There are many people who say that in practice,

25:55

those laws, not unlike

25:58

poll taxes and literacy tests of bygone eras

26:01

disproportionately keep poor people

26:03

and people of color from voting. I

26:05

think that anybody who's poor can

26:07

still get a driver's license. I think anybody

26:10

that's of color can still get a driver's

26:12

license, or if they don't drive, they could

26:14

get some kind of a picture ID. I think

26:16

that's all that was intended, was to make

26:18

sure that the right person with the right picture is

26:21

voting. And I think it's actually

26:23

insulting to either the poor or

26:26

persons of color to say that they can't figure

26:28

out how to get a picture ID. Come on.

26:30

Right. And I don't think anybody's saying that they can't

26:33

figure out how to get a picture ID, but in practice

26:35

those things, whether it's a matter of being

26:37

time-consuming or there are language

26:40

barriers, historically those things

26:42

have been barriers to many

26:44

members

26:45

of those communities. I think

26:47

that's all that was intended was to make

26:49

sure that the right person with the right picture is

26:51

voting. If you don't have the right documentation

26:54

you shouldn't be voting. I want all of

26:56

them to vote. I just don't want

26:58

illegal people to vote.

27:00

So I'm wondering if you know between the

27:03

challenges that have come up with 2000 mules, the

27:05

sort of pending defamation case, what

27:07

would you say to folks who might

27:10

say that Salem is sowing mistrust in

27:12

American elections?

27:13

It is not our intent to sow

27:16

mistrust. It's our intent

27:18

to actually build trust in the

27:20

American system. We believe in the American

27:23

system. I don't agree with that,

27:25

that Salem is sowing seeds of mistrust.

27:28

I really don't. We're sowing seeds of belief

27:30

in America. That's what we want to do.

27:32

I know we have to wrap up, so I want to ask you one sort

27:34

of big picture question. I

27:36

know that Salem is in many, many different

27:39

mediums, but what do you say to those

27:41

who just say, radio just doesn't matter

27:43

anymore?

27:44

Well, radio will always matter,

27:47

but it's growing and expanding

27:49

into all kinds of different formats and

27:51

forms. So now you can hear us

27:53

on podcasting. You can watch us on

27:55

Salem News Channel. So there are

27:58

always going to be ways for us to get the word.

27:59

about as to what we do. But I think

28:02

that we're finding new ways that we

28:04

can reach our audience with our message and

28:06

we'll continue to do that. And,

28:09

you know, I'll see you in all of these

28:11

different venues, Katie, because I think they're all

28:13

growing and they're all going to make an impact.

28:21

In many ways, I enjoyed my conversation

28:24

with Phil Boyce. He was nice to me

28:26

and we share a love for radio.

28:28

But I've been listening to his stations for

28:31

a long time now. And to me,

28:33

what I hear doesn't sound like they're

28:35

trying to build trust in anything

28:38

except themselves. Not science,

28:40

not education, not our neighbors, not

28:43

the democratic process. And

28:45

there's a part of our conversation that

28:47

really stuck out

28:48

to me. All Georgia did was

28:50

try to make their elections more secure

28:53

so that the right people would vote.

28:57

Dinesh D'Souza in 2000 Mules suggested

29:00

the same thing.

29:01

These states are trying to do something

29:03

about systematic fraud

29:05

by restoring a modicum of

29:08

let's call it the old rules. Checking

29:10

your voter ID, checking signatures.

29:13

These voter integrity laws, far from being voter

29:15

suppression, are actually

29:17

a legitimate way to make sure that

29:20

the people who vote are actually eligible

29:22

to vote.

29:25

When I hear DeSouza and Boyce say

29:27

that they want the right people to vote,

29:30

I'm reminded of something we heard in episode

29:32

one.

29:33

How many of our Christians have

29:35

what I call the goo-goo syndrome? Good

29:38

government.

29:39

That's Paul Wierich, founder of the Council

29:41

for National Policy, the conservative networking

29:44

group that Salem has had close ties

29:46

to for decades.

29:47

They want everybody to vote.

29:50

I don't want everybody to vote. Elections

29:53

are not won by a majority of

29:55

people. They never have been from the beginning of our

29:57

country, and they are not now.

29:59

The fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly

30:02

goes up as the voting populace goes

30:04

down.

30:08

Election denial and the undermining of the

30:10

Democratic Project seems to have been

30:12

good for Salem's bottom line.

30:15

But I wanted to know, is it

30:17

legal?

30:17

There are two policies

30:20

which might be used to target false

30:22

news stories. That's

30:24

coming up after the break.

30:31

This

30:34

is On the Media, I'm Brooke Gladstone.

30:37

In this, the last segment

30:39

of our three week long investigation

30:42

into the rise of the right on talk radio,

30:45

reporter Katie Thornton goes in

30:47

search of answers. Here's Katie.

30:50

From the time I started reporting this series,

30:53

I had wondered if Salem and other outlets

30:55

are breaking any laws when they broadcast

30:58

election denial rhetoric and other falsehoods.

31:00

So I talked to some experts, including

31:03

Joel Timmer, professor at Texas Christian

31:05

University, who we heard from before the break.

31:07

He says false speech has been deemed

31:10

acceptable under the First Amendment, and

31:12

there are good reasons for that.

31:14

If we did punish speech that was false,

31:17

the big concern would be that that would lead to a chilling

31:19

effect. The rationale is that the public

31:21

in a democracy is best served by timely

31:23

reporting and robust, wide-open

31:26

debate about public affairs.

31:27

Chad Raphael, professor of communications

31:29

at Santa Clara University, agrees. And

31:32

that could be threatened if the news media feared

31:34

punishment for making honest mistakes.

31:36

But there are exceptions

31:39

when there's harm associated. And

31:41

when broadcasting on the public airwaves in particular,

31:44

there are a couple things that could potentially

31:46

curb dangerous falsehoods. The

31:48

first one is called the hoax rule. It

31:51

was put in place to stop deceptive radio

31:53

station promotions that took their fun

31:56

a little too far.

31:57

So for example, there was a radio station that...

33:59

With no penalties.

34:01

In two other cases where distortion

34:03

was compounded by numerous other infractions,

34:06

the commission issued short-term license renewals,

34:09

which is like putting them on probation. But they

34:11

renewed their licenses after that. In

34:13

the last three cases, distortion contributed

34:16

to a host of violations that ended up

34:18

costing broadcasters their licenses, but

34:20

it was only one of many infractions.

34:24

So what that means is... No

34:26

one has lost their license specifically

34:29

due to only a violation of

34:31

the news distortion rule.

34:32

By the way, the last time any of this happened

34:35

was decades ago.

34:37

Oh, and that hoax rule?

34:38

The FCC has never found anyone to have violated

34:40

that rule. But Chad says

34:43

it may not be a matter of under enforcement.

34:45

The toothlessness is kind of baked

34:47

in. I think as it's written

34:49

right now, the news distortion policy

34:52

was designed to be unenforced and

34:54

unenforceable. FCC.

34:56

Its current definition of distortion will

34:58

mention three criteria for proving distortion.

35:01

One, the coverage in question has

35:04

to be on a significant matter. Two,

35:06

news has to be intentionally distorted, not

35:08

an innocent mistake or expression of a controversial

35:11

opinion. And three, the

35:13

kicker.

35:13

There must be some extrinsic evidence

35:16

other than the broadcast itself about

35:19

the distortion. So some testimony from

35:21

someone that they were arrived or

35:23

told that kind of explicit pressure is rare.

35:27

When I analyzed FCC decisions between 1969

35:29

and 99, I

35:32

found that lack of outside evidence was the

35:34

main reason the FCC gave for dismissing

35:36

distortion complaints. The

35:39

FCC tends to only question whether they were distorted

35:42

if you can show a kind of smoking gun memo or an outtake or

35:47

testimony from a journalist that

35:49

they were told to fabricate something. from a journalist

35:51

that they were told to fabricate something.

35:54

And there are some other things that render the policy

35:56

pretty meek. The FCC only

35:59

allows comp-

39:59

broadcasts a priority, what

40:02

other options are there that could help curb

40:04

the influence of dangerous falsehoods

40:06

on the air? We've

40:08

talked throughout the series about the fairness doctrine,

40:11

the policy that sought to counter one-sided

40:13

broadcasts not by restricting speech but

40:15

by encouraging more speech.

40:17

And every so often there is a push in the public

40:20

or even Congress to revive it. I

40:22

don't think that something like a new fairness doctrine

40:24

would work. Historian and author Nicole

40:27

Hammer. precisely because FCC commissioners

40:29

are appointed by presidents, and that

40:33

would backfire, I think, pretty quickly. And

40:35

if it was politicized, it wouldn't be the first

40:37

time. Remember when Kennedy's FCC

40:39

used it to intimidate some broadcasters

40:42

who were airing McCarthyite voices in the 1960s?

40:45

Plus the idea of fairness

40:49

can sometimes be at odds with a core

40:51

journalistic tenant

40:52

reporting the truth.

40:55

If broadcasters were forced to air the other

40:57

side of issues like supposed

40:59

widespread election fraud or climate

41:02

change, that would mean platforming

41:04

ideas that just aren't factual.

41:07

On top of that, the Fairness Doctrine only applied

41:09

to inherently scarce broadcast

41:12

media — radio and television, not

41:14

cable, not the internet. And perhaps most

41:16

importantly, the Fairness Doctrine alone

41:19

didn't prevent racist, one-sided broadcasts

41:21

from dominating the airwaves back in the middle

41:24

of the century.

41:29

So if not content regulation, then

41:31

what?

41:33

In episode two, we also saw how economic

41:35

decisions like the 96 Telecom Act

41:38

ended up dramatically affecting content.

41:40

Getting rid of the limit on the number of stations a single

41:42

company could own nationwide let those

41:45

who were already at an advantage in the market

41:47

get massive and blast out almost exclusively

41:50

right-wing programming all over the country.

41:52

So could economic changes make it possible

41:55

for more owners to get on the air with more

41:57

perspectives? You could...

43:59

place that require

44:02

them to actually serve the local community, they're

44:04

going to serve the bottom line. All

44:07

for local and diverse ownership.

44:10

That's not enough. You need to have

44:12

the rules in place that give the local

44:15

community power.

44:18

In the civil rights era, citizen action

44:20

eventually led to policies like ascertainment

44:23

and educational programming requirements. They

44:25

were policies that didn't eradicate conservative

44:28

and far-right perspectives from the radio, no

44:31

one's arguing for that, but they did increase

44:33

the number of perspectives that could be heard on

44:35

the airwaves. And while the idea

44:38

of creating new policies that would place

44:40

community need over profit may

44:42

sound like a fantasy, there's

44:44

one thing that might actually make it possible

44:47

on radio in particular.

44:49

The electromagnetic spectrum, the

44:52

waves that carry radio broadcasts into

44:54

your home, that

44:55

spectrum is public property.

44:57

It's used for other things too, like government communication

45:00

and Wi-Fi. But on that spectrum,

45:03

radio companies have a special

45:05

privilege.

45:06

Unlike the telecommunications companies, unlike

45:10

AT&T, unlike

45:12

Cox, Broadband,

45:15

radio stations use the public spectrum

45:17

and pay nothing for it. AT&T

45:20

pays to use the spectrum to provide you

45:22

telephone service or internet service. stations,

45:26

commercial stations, public stations,

45:29

they pay nothing.

45:31

There's an annual regulatory fee station

45:33

owners pay to the FCC, but they occupy

45:36

the spectrum rent free.

45:37

Because back in the 1920s, the government

45:40

decided that private companies could use

45:42

the spectrum in exchange for

45:44

a promise, a promise that is still

45:47

on the books today.

45:48

They get it for the promise that they have

45:50

made to actually provide public

45:53

service. For all

45:55

the changes the radio dial has faced, that

45:57

requirement to serve the public interest

47:59

from throughout this series, was a grad student

48:02

in 2004, when she went home to

48:04

Indiana for the summer. And one

48:06

day when we were out in the car, my

48:09

dad turns on the radio and he says, you

48:11

know, this summer, I'm gonna get

48:13

you to vote for George

48:15

W. Bush. And

48:17

he was going to do that by

48:19

having me listen to Rush Limbaugh,

48:22

to Sean Hannity, to all of these conservative

48:24

talk radio hosts. To Nicole's

48:26

dad, there was something about radio.

48:29

He found it so persuasive, and he found

48:32

it so entertaining that he

48:34

really did believe exposure was

48:37

all that I needed in order to

48:40

become like-minded politically.

48:46

Nicole's dad died in early 2009, and

48:49

despite being a longtime talk radio

48:51

listener, she says his love for

48:53

America trumped all. After

48:56

Barack Obama won the presidency,

48:59

He didn't take the limbo line of,

49:01

I hope he fails. His line was,

49:03

he wasn't who I voted for,

49:05

but I hope that he does a really

49:08

good job. And he wanted him to, right?

49:10

Because there was this huge financial crisis. And

49:12

he likes this country, and

49:14

he didn't want things

49:16

to go badly.

49:19

But things are different today.

49:21

As companies like Salem have grown entrenched

49:23

in everything from podcasts to web news

49:25

to church sermons, There's a wallpaper

49:27

effect of their sometimes hateful and

49:30

anti-democratic messages.

49:32

Nicole says if she's honest, she

49:34

doesn't know how her dad would have handled this

49:37

present moment.

49:38

I don't know if he would

49:40

have grown alienated from

49:43

conservative media or if he would

49:45

have grown alienated from me by

49:47

moving down a much more radicalized

49:50

path.

49:51

That's not a bridge we ever had to cross.

49:58

It would be naive to

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