WEBVTT - The Returns: Hush Rush 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:23.915 Pushkin. I promise not to get too technical with you, 0:00:24.235 --> 0:00:27.155 but bear with me for a second. I am speaking 0:00:27.155 --> 0:00:30.555 to you now through an electro voice ARI twenty microphone. 0:00:30.875 --> 0:00:32.995 It's black with a mesh cap at the top, kind 0:00:32.995 --> 0:00:36.315 of clunky, very eighties looking. It's pretty weighty. I think 0:00:36.315 --> 0:00:38.555 if you clubbed someone with it, you could probably knock 0:00:38.595 --> 0:00:41.595 them unconscious. Same deal if you just talk real slow 0:00:41.635 --> 0:00:44.875 and boring. Some people, people who spend all their time 0:00:44.915 --> 0:00:48.435 thinking about recording equipment, think it sounds honky in the parlance. 0:00:48.995 --> 0:00:51.715 I'm not entirely sure what that means. In any way, 0:00:51.835 --> 0:00:56.235 I like it. My Ari twenty, however, is not gold plated. 0:00:56.795 --> 0:00:59.435 But today on the show, we have the story of 0:00:59.475 --> 0:01:04.435 somebody who's was Rush Limbaugh is probably the most famous 0:01:04.475 --> 0:01:07.835 conservative talk radio host of the twentieth and twenty first century. 0:01:08.075 --> 0:01:10.995 He was a larger than life personnel, and he contributed 0:01:11.075 --> 0:01:14.275 a whole lot to the hyper partisan, hyper polarized media 0:01:14.395 --> 0:01:17.755 landscape we live in today. Making the story you're about 0:01:17.755 --> 0:01:20.955 to hear, we listened to a lot of Rush limbat tape, 0:01:21.115 --> 0:01:23.115 and when you listen to enough of it, you begin 0:01:23.195 --> 0:01:25.955 to feel his voice like it's hammering into your skull. 0:01:26.475 --> 0:01:28.595 Whatever you think of the man's politics. He was an 0:01:28.635 --> 0:01:31.955 all time Hall of Fame shock chock. He was very, 0:01:32.075 --> 0:01:34.995 very good at his job. When he really wanted to 0:01:35.035 --> 0:01:37.635 make a point, he'd lean in really close to the 0:01:37.675 --> 0:01:41.795 microphone like this. It's called eating the microphone. Well, the 0:01:41.835 --> 0:01:44.275 episode I'm about to play you is about how that 0:01:44.395 --> 0:01:50.795 gold plated microphone eight American politics. Since the beginning of radio, 0:01:50.955 --> 0:01:54.235 people have worried about its power. On the radio, millions 0:01:54.275 --> 0:01:56.395 of people can hear a single voice all at the 0:01:56.435 --> 0:01:59.915 same time, with sound effects and on scene reporting, radio 0:01:59.955 --> 0:02:03.635 could put images and ideas into the listener's mind, your mind. 0:02:04.235 --> 0:02:06.155 People thought it was so powerful it could be a 0:02:06.235 --> 0:02:09.115 great tool for democracy, a way to educate everyone in 0:02:09.155 --> 0:02:13.155 the country. But if radio was that powerful, couldn't it 0:02:13.195 --> 0:02:17.355 be a tool for totalitarianism and groupthink. In nineteen thirty three, 0:02:17.515 --> 0:02:21.875 Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Gerbels wrote, the German radio, under 0:02:21.955 --> 0:02:25.795 national socialist auspices must become the clearest and most direct 0:02:25.795 --> 0:02:30.115 instrument for educating and restructuring the German nation end quote. 0:02:30.915 --> 0:02:33.555 In the US people were worried about that version of 0:02:33.595 --> 0:02:37.115 the radio, so they made laws and rules and norms 0:02:37.155 --> 0:02:40.715 to keep it at bay, the fairness doctrine, equal time. 0:02:40.955 --> 0:02:43.515 Those were some of them. But surveying the last one 0:02:43.595 --> 0:02:46.355 hundred years of media history, you might get the feeling 0:02:46.395 --> 0:02:50.035 that fairness and equality haven't really been the trajectory. This 0:02:50.155 --> 0:02:52.515 episode looks at what went wrong with the media and 0:02:52.555 --> 0:02:55.315 politics and points to the history of the moment we're 0:02:55.315 --> 0:02:57.915 in now, where it seems as if every American lives 0:02:57.995 --> 0:03:00.795 in his or her own version of reality. From our 0:03:00.835 --> 0:03:05.315 second season, recorded back in twenty twenty one, Here's hush Rush. 0:03:07.635 --> 0:03:09.955 There's a place in our world where the known things go. 0:03:11.915 --> 0:03:18.515 A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves cluttered with proof. Inside. 0:03:18.675 --> 0:03:23.715 I've been cataloging my collection of evidence about propagandists, hypnotists 0:03:23.755 --> 0:03:27.955 and conspiracy theorists, labeling reels with masking tape and sharpies, 0:03:28.635 --> 0:03:33.115 organizing them by date, reel after reel of tape. It's 0:03:33.155 --> 0:03:36.475 like the Nixon Novle Office in here, recordings of the 0:03:36.475 --> 0:03:39.435 sorts of people we've been listening to all season, episode 0:03:39.755 --> 0:03:40.835 after episode. 0:03:41.955 --> 0:03:45.115 Your command of whole life in the months of worldwide lungfuls. 0:03:45.355 --> 0:03:47.635 The man who makes his living by telling the truth, the. 0:03:47.675 --> 0:03:49.435 Man who I got to say. 0:03:52.955 --> 0:03:55.435 I want you to keep on going back and back 0:03:55.555 --> 0:03:59.355 and back in your mind, the wall of secrecy, the 0:03:59.435 --> 0:04:03.235 news media being silent, and the Patsy's locked up, and 0:04:03.475 --> 0:04:05.275 the psychological profile. 0:04:04.955 --> 0:04:11.875 Robert Ripley, access Sally, Maury Bernstein, May Brussel, Valentine, Yeah, boys, 0:04:13.595 --> 0:04:17.715 Kaya and I I mean, each of them asking you, 0:04:17.995 --> 0:04:21.635 the listener, to doubt what you think you know, and 0:04:21.795 --> 0:04:24.915 very often that doubt is delivered through the medium of radio. 0:04:26.115 --> 0:04:28.915 I've got just one more of these voices. He's all 0:04:28.955 --> 0:04:30.995 the rest, all balled up together. 0:04:32.195 --> 0:04:32.675 You are, my. 0:04:32.795 --> 0:04:35.635 Friends, about to be exposed to the kind of bristling, 0:04:35.795 --> 0:04:39.915 cogent analysis available nowhere else. Because of this, your initial 0:04:39.995 --> 0:04:41.955 reaction may be shock and disbelief. 0:04:42.755 --> 0:04:46.195 That's the voice of mister Rush Limbaugh. And I'm Jill Lapour, 0:04:46.395 --> 0:04:48.635 host of a show that could hardly be more different 0:04:48.675 --> 0:04:51.835 from the Rush Limbaugh Show. Welcome to the Last Archive, 0:04:52.195 --> 0:04:54.355 the show about how we know what we know and 0:04:54.435 --> 0:04:56.955 why sometimes it seems lately as if we don't know 0:04:57.035 --> 0:05:01.275 anything at all. Step over the threshold and along the 0:05:01.435 --> 0:05:04.075 passage of time to the year nineteen eighty eight. 0:05:07.035 --> 0:05:10.755 Don't fight it, don't even try. Just surrender yourself. 0:05:11.715 --> 0:05:16.555 Surrender yourself that's his mantra, it's not mine. My mantra 0:05:16.715 --> 0:05:23.955 is never surrender. What's the first thing you do when 0:05:23.995 --> 0:05:28.115 you get in the car, Collect the seatbelt, switch on 0:05:28.195 --> 0:05:33.155 the ignition, Turn on the radio. Yeah, find the right station. 0:05:33.315 --> 0:05:41.155 Here's a little there you want there, jingle one gracious Roman. 0:05:41.035 --> 0:05:52.675 Her just say times. 0:05:53.955 --> 0:05:56.995 Carry radios first became common in the nineteen thirties. For 0:05:57.155 --> 0:06:00.875 decades radio was am radio, local stations, maybe with some 0:06:01.075 --> 0:06:03.675 top of the hour news and a lot of sports. 0:06:06.355 --> 0:06:06.835 Baseball. 0:06:07.435 --> 0:06:09.195 You by the first bag of the bank of since 0:06:09.315 --> 0:06:12.875 that or your money grows safely and high return certificates 0:06:12.915 --> 0:06:13.395 of the body. 0:06:14.115 --> 0:06:16.595 Something else that had long been popular on AM radio 0:06:17.315 --> 0:06:18.115 gospel shows. 0:06:18.355 --> 0:06:21.595 The voice of the Hour of Decision, Billy Graham, So 0:06:21.835 --> 0:06:25.355 for you, for the nation, this is the Hour of Decision. 0:06:31.355 --> 0:06:34.555 By the nineteen seventies, the most popular AM radio shows 0:06:34.675 --> 0:06:38.315 were drivetime shows, the ones that aired during your commute. 0:06:38.675 --> 0:06:44.915 Rock and Roll hosted by fast talking djsk. 0:06:43.995 --> 0:06:46.555 Nine oh three and fourteen k on the award winning 0:06:46.915 --> 0:06:47.995 Ye Rock Game. 0:06:47.875 --> 0:06:49.995 Roll Over the show with Bunny and Product for all 0:06:50.075 --> 0:06:51.955 some of you, no doubts, no wondering, one award. 0:06:51.755 --> 0:06:52.075 I have won. 0:06:52.155 --> 0:06:56.115 I'll tell you not out of the Marconia Warren More 0:06:56.195 --> 0:06:58.395 Textlent Rock Kennery, that. 0:06:58.555 --> 0:07:04.235 Young Boogaroo, that's the young Rush Limbaugh. Jeff Christy, this 0:07:04.395 --> 0:07:05.835 is non to radio backs in. 0:07:06.555 --> 0:07:08.355 Boy, congratulate our name and acclaiment winners. 0:07:08.395 --> 0:07:09.475 Jeff round With of Eastmont. 0:07:09.795 --> 0:07:11.635 I'll tell you, Jem I will think you twelve six 0:07:11.795 --> 0:07:14.155 packs of Carefree sugarlist gun to get to it all day. 0:07:15.195 --> 0:07:18.035 Limbaugh was born in Missouri. He went to Southeast Missouri 0:07:18.115 --> 0:07:20.715 State University for a year, but dropped out to work 0:07:20.755 --> 0:07:24.155 in radio. In nineteen seventy one, he got a job 0:07:24.195 --> 0:07:27.035 as a disc jockey at an AM station outside Pittsburgh. 0:07:27.715 --> 0:07:29.435 He got fired after a year and a half and 0:07:29.555 --> 0:07:30.755 went to a station called. 0:07:30.755 --> 0:07:33.795 Kqv And that one time made the twelve more entries 0:07:33.875 --> 0:07:36.475 for you in the Camfree Rock Concert contrast. 0:07:36.275 --> 0:07:37.635 You and Jack Box for Tomorrow is. 0:07:37.635 --> 0:07:40.875 Two hundred and forty dollars and fourteen sent the lot 0:07:40.875 --> 0:07:42.755 of guys that you can remember it. Bob deccannell makes 0:07:42.795 --> 0:07:43.155 the next. 0:07:43.035 --> 0:07:43.435 Call the one. 0:07:43.515 --> 0:07:46.395 Limbaugh died in twenty twenty one at the age of seventy. 0:07:46.995 --> 0:07:50.155 His obituaries head headlines like We're living in the world. 0:07:50.275 --> 0:07:54.235 Rush Limbaugh created and that's true. But even though you 0:07:54.315 --> 0:07:56.235 may think you know all the ways we now live 0:07:56.315 --> 0:08:01.875 in Rush Limbaugh's world, there's more to understand. It has 0:08:01.915 --> 0:08:03.635 to do with what a lot of this season has 0:08:03.675 --> 0:08:07.755 been exploring how we hear voices on the radio. There 0:08:07.795 --> 0:08:10.915 were lots of testimonials to Limbo after he died, but 0:08:11.115 --> 0:08:14.115 one comment really stuck with me. A guy wrote on 0:08:14.235 --> 0:08:17.475 YouTube his show was the only one that came in clearly. 0:08:17.995 --> 0:08:18.755 So I listened. 0:08:20.155 --> 0:08:22.755 People are thinking of a Jefferson Startist show. 0:08:23.275 --> 0:08:24.635 Work of way details them. 0:08:28.675 --> 0:08:31.075 Limbaugh even when he was Jeff Christi. He was a 0:08:31.115 --> 0:08:34.835 big guy, wide grin waved his hands a lot, big personality, 0:08:35.355 --> 0:08:39.795 a little George Costanza meets Fred Flinstone. In nineteen seventy four, 0:08:39.915 --> 0:08:42.475 he lost yet another job. He moved back home with 0:08:42.555 --> 0:08:45.515 his parents in Missouri. He was twenty three. It was 0:08:45.555 --> 0:08:47.595 a very tough time to try to make a career 0:08:47.675 --> 0:08:52.315 in AM radio, mainly because FM radio was on the rise. 0:08:53.155 --> 0:08:56.595 FM radio a fight free static three FM or FM 0:08:56.715 --> 0:09:01.035 stereo car radio. Child Survey It's out of silent day. 0:09:02.795 --> 0:09:05.115 Starting in the nineteen fifties, the era of Elvis the 0:09:05.115 --> 0:09:08.555 Little Richard, people bought FM radios for their houses. But 0:09:08.635 --> 0:09:11.995 the FMI I only really exploded in the nineteen seventies, when, 0:09:12.035 --> 0:09:14.115 for the first time, you could get FM in your car. 0:09:14.915 --> 0:09:18.555 At this point, AM radio was mono, just one track. 0:09:20.475 --> 0:09:25.275 FM was stereo. It was immersive. Naturally, everyone wanted to 0:09:25.315 --> 0:09:28.795 switch from plain old mono to stereo. He'd bring your 0:09:28.835 --> 0:09:31.275 car into the shop and switch out your AM radio 0:09:31.395 --> 0:09:40.115 for an FM radio with stereo speakers. Seem this change 0:09:40.155 --> 0:09:42.755 in the sound of radio from AM to FM would 0:09:42.755 --> 0:09:46.755 have vast repercussions for the history of knowledge. A very 0:09:46.835 --> 0:09:53.875 long reverb, AM radio suffered, listenership plummeted, and then so 0:09:54.035 --> 0:09:57.275 did AD revenue. By nineteen eighty seven, the majority of 0:09:57.315 --> 0:10:00.435 AM radio stations were no longer making a profit, and 0:10:00.515 --> 0:10:02.755 people who worked at AM radio stations in the nineteen 0:10:02.835 --> 0:10:07.635 seventies were losing their jobs, including in Kansas City, where Limbaugh, 0:10:07.875 --> 0:10:10.355 who'd been moving from job to job had landed. 0:10:10.715 --> 0:10:11.995 All the DJs got fired. 0:10:12.155 --> 0:10:16.075 I was spared as assistant program director, and you know 0:10:16.155 --> 0:10:19.355 what that meant, programming the automation machine. 0:10:20.355 --> 0:10:23.595 Limba didn't last long as an assistant program director. He 0:10:23.635 --> 0:10:27.475 took a job instead with the Kansas City Royals baseball team. Meanwhile, 0:10:27.635 --> 0:10:30.435 AM radio stations were beginning to figure out that if 0:10:30.475 --> 0:10:33.395 they could leave music to the FM band and concentrate 0:10:33.475 --> 0:10:36.795 on talk shows, they could start making money again. In 0:10:36.955 --> 0:10:39.795 mono talk sounds fine, even if you might not agree 0:10:39.795 --> 0:10:40.675 with what someone's saying. 0:10:41.035 --> 0:10:44.235 The simple fact matter is that the homeless advocacy in 0:10:44.315 --> 0:10:46.835 this country is, I think, based upon fraud. 0:10:48.595 --> 0:10:52.515 In nineteen eighty four, broadcasting under his own name, Limbaugh 0:10:52.635 --> 0:10:55.675 started a new kind of talk radio show in Sacramento 0:10:56.115 --> 0:11:00.115 on KFBK. He pretty much invented a whole new format. 0:11:00.955 --> 0:11:03.315 Soon he had a deal for national syndication. 0:11:04.275 --> 0:11:07.115 The opinions expressed on the Rush Limbaugh program did not 0:11:07.275 --> 0:11:11.595 necessarily reflect those of WABC Radio or its management, and 0:11:11.715 --> 0:11:13.595 now here's Rush Limbaugh. 0:11:15.755 --> 0:11:18.235 Either way. That's a Gutlass disclaimer. The view is expressed 0:11:18.235 --> 0:11:20.115 by the host of this show ought to become federal 0:11:20.195 --> 0:11:23.715 law in the station and sponsors all who heartily endorse them. 0:11:25.395 --> 0:11:28.355 The Rush Limbaugh Show was a one way wall of talk. 0:11:28.955 --> 0:11:32.315 Limbaugh was funny, he was angry. His program started with 0:11:32.395 --> 0:11:35.595 a news digest, then a series of opinions mixed with 0:11:35.715 --> 0:11:39.955 calls from listeners who agreed with those opinions. Year's voice now, 0:11:40.155 --> 0:11:43.595 and it sounds so utterly familiar. That's because it's the 0:11:43.715 --> 0:11:47.235 voice of the political YouTuber, or of a certain sort 0:11:47.275 --> 0:11:52.115 of podcaster, brash, annoying, know it all. But it was 0:11:52.155 --> 0:11:54.755 a new voice then, and it spoke to listeners for 0:11:54.915 --> 0:11:57.235 three hours a day, five days a week. 0:11:58.515 --> 0:12:01.115 So to give you just a bit of an idea 0:12:02.675 --> 0:12:06.675 about the show, there are no guests never. We don't 0:12:06.715 --> 0:12:11.595 talk about single issues or themes unless they evolve as 0:12:11.675 --> 0:12:15.515 the program goes. It is pretty much an open line 0:12:16.075 --> 0:12:17.635 discussion each and every day. 0:12:19.635 --> 0:12:25.355 Limba revolutionized radio open line. It was all him, even 0:12:25.395 --> 0:12:28.475 some of the ads. At a time when human resources 0:12:28.515 --> 0:12:32.915 departments were newly requiring sexual harassment training, Limbaugh spent a 0:12:32.995 --> 0:12:36.075 lot of his time on air attacking feminists, especially after 0:12:36.155 --> 0:12:40.635 Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. 0:12:41.355 --> 0:12:46.395 Limba made a fake ad about Feminazi trading cards. I'll 0:12:46.435 --> 0:12:48.115 give you two glorious nyems for an Anita Hell. 0:12:48.275 --> 0:12:50.075 Trading cards have always been for males only. 0:12:50.315 --> 0:12:52.755 It's just not fair, It's not right. Damn I spilt 0:12:52.835 --> 0:12:54.315 ill past my Betty freedan. 0:12:54.235 --> 0:12:56.915 Feminazi cards are designed with a woman in mind. 0:12:57.115 --> 0:13:00.155 I'll up front, I remember in those years my dad 0:13:00.275 --> 0:13:03.115 listening to Limba, who drove my mother nuts. I bet 0:13:03.115 --> 0:13:06.115 a lot of families had an experience like that. Limba. 0:13:06.555 --> 0:13:09.755 He'd say it seemed anything, so partly people tuned in 0:13:10.035 --> 0:13:12.435 for the thrill of it, to hear what he'd say next. 0:13:13.355 --> 0:13:14.875 For the rest of us, though, it was like getting 0:13:14.955 --> 0:13:17.875 kicked in the face every day. He went after feminists, 0:13:17.955 --> 0:13:21.475 He liked to mock environmentalists, gays and lesbians. He made 0:13:21.515 --> 0:13:25.515 a lot of jokes about aides. Despite or really because 0:13:25.515 --> 0:13:29.435 of all that, Limbo's audience just grew and grew. Mainly 0:13:29.515 --> 0:13:33.195 that audience was men, white men who were angry. As 0:13:33.235 --> 0:13:36.395 angry as Rush seemed to be real. Wages for white 0:13:36.435 --> 0:13:39.595 men who had gone to college were dropping. They're still dropping. 0:13:39.955 --> 0:13:41.675 Some of these guys really did have a lot to 0:13:41.715 --> 0:13:45.235 be angry about. Rush told them who to be angry at. 0:13:45.995 --> 0:13:50.155 The people who loved Rush. They called themselves dittoheads because 0:13:50.195 --> 0:13:54.235 they believed everything he said and would say it back ditto. 0:13:56.355 --> 0:13:59.675 Limbo's format, the wall of Talk pushed nearly everything else 0:13:59.795 --> 0:14:03.155 off talk radio, all the kooky chit chat and cooking 0:14:03.195 --> 0:14:08.995 shows and carpentry shows and community theater everything. Meanwhile, radio stations, 0:14:09.035 --> 0:14:10.675 which for a long time time had been mom and 0:14:10.755 --> 0:14:15.155 pop operations, were getting bought out by giant, consolidated, national, 0:14:15.475 --> 0:14:19.515 and even global corporations. Here I've got to disclose something 0:14:19.675 --> 0:14:23.995 about that consolidation. The Rush Limbaugh Show was eventually syndicated 0:14:24.035 --> 0:14:28.115 by an outfit called clear Channel. More recently, clear Channel 0:14:28.195 --> 0:14:31.715 rebranded itself as iHeart Media, and an arm of iHeart 0:14:31.795 --> 0:14:34.915 now sells ads for Pushkin Industries, which is the production 0:14:35.035 --> 0:14:38.115 house that makes the last Archive. So this is like 0:14:38.195 --> 0:14:41.195 when the Washington Post reports on Amazon and then has 0:14:41.275 --> 0:14:44.235 to mention that the Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. Okay, 0:14:44.315 --> 0:14:47.395 the last Archive is not the Washington Post, and iHeart 0:14:47.475 --> 0:14:51.515 doesn't own Pushkin. But still it's important to disclose these things. 0:14:52.595 --> 0:14:56.555 Limbaugh liked to present himself as a cowboy, a maverick, bold, reckless, 0:14:56.675 --> 0:15:00.435 and unpredictable. In reality, he was more like the Wonderbread 0:15:00.475 --> 0:15:04.155 of radio, the factory made whitebread of radio, who was 0:15:04.195 --> 0:15:07.915 the same every goddamn day, rant, rant, ad rant, rant, 0:15:07.995 --> 0:15:12.395 ad rant, rant, big rant, station break rant. What he 0:15:12.515 --> 0:15:15.595 was selling was his own predictability three hours a day, 0:15:16.395 --> 0:15:20.115 five days a week. But the forces that had to 0:15:20.155 --> 0:15:22.715 do with Limbaugh's success had to do with more than 0:15:22.875 --> 0:15:27.355 just radio formats. For years, Limbaugh's fortunes rose while other 0:15:27.475 --> 0:15:32.395 medias fell. Daily newspapers were going out of business. Limbaugh 0:15:32.515 --> 0:15:33.515 didn't seem to mind. 0:15:35.195 --> 0:15:37.075 If you listened to this show every day, you never 0:15:37.155 --> 0:15:40.235 need to read another newspaper again, never read on a magazine. 0:15:40.275 --> 0:15:41.635 I do it for you, and you get a bonus. 0:15:41.795 --> 0:15:45.715 I tell you what to think about this incredibly complicated 0:15:45.755 --> 0:15:46.635 and controversial issue. 0:15:47.955 --> 0:15:51.155 I tell you what to think. And he wasn't joking. 0:15:51.715 --> 0:15:55.635 Limba presented himself as a prophet liberals and Feminazis, they 0:15:55.675 --> 0:15:59.035 were heretics. Limba was talking politics, but his show was 0:15:59.155 --> 0:16:01.435 less like a news program than like those old radio 0:16:01.515 --> 0:16:07.035 gospel shows. Politics as preaching, listening as worship, conservatism as 0:16:07.075 --> 0:16:11.675 a new religion. Scholars call this called sectarianism, and in 0:16:11.755 --> 0:16:14.475 this era, sectarianism was headed to Washington. 0:16:15.795 --> 0:16:18.235 At gopack, our mission is to gain control of the 0:16:18.355 --> 0:16:19.755 US House of Representatives. 0:16:20.075 --> 0:16:23.115 We're developing a farm team of future congressional candidates. 0:16:23.475 --> 0:16:26.155 That's audio from what's known as a go Pack tape, 0:16:26.675 --> 0:16:29.075 one of the thousands of tapes made by a GOP 0:16:29.395 --> 0:16:33.075 political action committee that had become the mouthpiece for just 0:16:33.195 --> 0:16:33.635 one man. 0:16:34.915 --> 0:16:37.635 This is Congress and Nude Gingrich. As a candidate, you've 0:16:37.675 --> 0:16:39.875 probably been listening to tapes from gopack all year, and 0:16:39.955 --> 0:16:43.275 you know that we've emphasized certain basic ideas and certain 0:16:43.315 --> 0:16:44.155 basic approaches. 0:16:44.955 --> 0:16:48.715 Newt Gingrich, then a congressman from Georgia. Gingrich heard what 0:16:48.835 --> 0:16:51.075 Limbaugh was doing on air, and in the late nineteen 0:16:51.075 --> 0:16:54.075 eighties started to record his own version of that format 0:16:54.475 --> 0:16:57.435 through these go pack cassette tapes. If you were a 0:16:57.515 --> 0:17:00.875 Republican running for office or working on a campaign, you'd 0:17:00.915 --> 0:17:03.435 probably listen to these tapes in your car as cassette player. 0:17:04.195 --> 0:17:06.595 In this tape, we have a speech I gave to 0:17:06.675 --> 0:17:09.715 the Republicans in California. We decided to share with you 0:17:09.995 --> 0:17:12.475 as an example of how you can bring all the 0:17:12.555 --> 0:17:13.795 basic values together. 0:17:14.395 --> 0:17:17.635 This is the sound of modern political history, shifting gears 0:17:18.315 --> 0:17:22.435 and burning out the clutch. The tapes were mailed to 0:17:22.595 --> 0:17:26.395 thousands of people every month. One Republican from Minnesota told 0:17:26.475 --> 0:17:29.595 PBS's Frontline how crucial they were when. 0:17:29.475 --> 0:17:30.115 They would come. 0:17:30.515 --> 0:17:32.195 I mean, and you spent some time in a car, 0:17:32.235 --> 0:17:34.475 particularly going back and forth to the state legislature. 0:17:34.875 --> 0:17:35.875 When they would come in the mail. 0:17:35.915 --> 0:17:38.275 I mean I would open them up right away, and 0:17:38.595 --> 0:17:41.075 I would put them in a cassette player within twenty 0:17:41.115 --> 0:17:41.635 four hours. 0:17:42.555 --> 0:17:44.595 The purpose of the tapes was to create a single 0:17:44.875 --> 0:17:50.355 national message for a conservative insurgency, to make newt dittoheads. 0:17:52.355 --> 0:17:55.475 There are two movements in America. There's a left wing 0:17:55.635 --> 0:18:00.315 radical movement, and there's a common sense, practical, center right majority, 0:18:00.755 --> 0:18:03.475 the basic conservatives. Let me give you an example of 0:18:03.595 --> 0:18:05.875 how we think you can draw those lines. 0:18:06.835 --> 0:18:10.035 Gingrich proposed a set of dualisms for candidates to use 0:18:10.115 --> 0:18:13.315 in ads. You might think this kind of hyper polarized 0:18:13.355 --> 0:18:16.435 rhetoric is more recent, a product of social media, maybe, 0:18:17.075 --> 0:18:17.875 but you'd be wrong. 0:18:18.275 --> 0:18:22.155 We believe in locking up criminals, especially dangerous criminals, but 0:18:22.275 --> 0:18:25.555 allowing honest citizens stone guns. The radical left introduced to 0:18:25.595 --> 0:18:28.755 build a legalize sex with animals, but we oppose legal 0:18:28.835 --> 0:18:31.715 sex with animals. In fact, frankly, we oppose any kind 0:18:31.755 --> 0:18:32.595 of sex with animals. 0:18:35.995 --> 0:18:38.155 In the early nineteen nineties, and a memo sent out 0:18:38.195 --> 0:18:41.955 with the tapes, go Back supplied candidates with a vocabulary list. 0:18:42.555 --> 0:18:50.315 It suggested words to use to help define your campaign change, opportunity, legacy, challenge, control, truth. 0:18:51.795 --> 0:19:07.315 Moral, courage, reform, prosperity, crusade, movement, children, family, debate, compete, humane, pristine, provide, liberty, commitment, duty, fair, protect, confident, incentive, 0:19:07.555 --> 0:19:09.755 hard work, initiative, common sense. 0:19:12.435 --> 0:19:15.115 Go Peck also listed words to use to describe your 0:19:15.155 --> 0:19:19.675 political opponents, words like sick, pathetic, liberal. 0:19:19.635 --> 0:19:34.995 Lie, shallow, traders, sensationalists, in danger, coercion, hypocrisy, radical, threatened, devour, waste, corruption, incompetent, permissive, attitude, destructive, impose, 0:19:35.435 --> 0:19:41.395 self serving, greed, sheet steel, abuse of power, obsolete. 0:19:44.075 --> 0:19:48.355 This was political warfare on all fronts. Gingrich trained the officers, 0:19:48.795 --> 0:19:52.835 Limbaugh rallied the troops. Gingrich's political power grew, and so 0:19:52.995 --> 0:19:57.075 did Limbaugh's audience to round fifteen million listeners each week. 0:19:57.835 --> 0:20:01.635 In nineteen ninety one, Limba appeared on CBS's sixty Minutes. 0:20:02.195 --> 0:20:03.595 What are you trying to do with this show? 0:20:04.275 --> 0:20:07.555 I'm trying to attract the largest audience I can and 0:20:07.755 --> 0:20:09.995 hold it for as long as I can so that 0:20:10.075 --> 0:20:13.715 I can charge advertisers confiscatory advertiser rates. This is a business. 0:20:13.915 --> 0:20:14.755 You're in it for the money. 0:20:18.235 --> 0:20:20.915 Sure, of course, I'm doing a lot of this for money. 0:20:21.675 --> 0:20:25.275 That's Limbaugh earning points for being honest. It's also a tactic. 0:20:25.435 --> 0:20:30.355 Donald Trump would adopt honesty about loving money. Listeners adored it. 0:20:31.035 --> 0:20:33.315 For talk radio, the money came rolling in, and not 0:20:33.635 --> 0:20:37.035 just for Limbaugh. Between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety four, 0:20:37.355 --> 0:20:39.955 an average of twenty new talk radio stations went into 0:20:39.995 --> 0:20:45.155 business every month. Their shows weren't all conservative, at least 0:20:45.235 --> 0:20:48.435 not at first, but soon station owners discovered that if 0:20:48.475 --> 0:20:51.435 they ran only conservative talk, they had more listeners. 0:20:52.275 --> 0:20:57.515 No sports, no back, no information for mindless shatter your station. 0:20:57.555 --> 0:21:00.675 Kay BBL Talk Radio on Alice Springfield's papered conservative and 0:21:00.875 --> 0:21:03.715 author of the well selling book Only Turkeys Have Left Wings, 0:21:03.875 --> 0:21:04.635 Ladies and Gentlemen. 0:21:04.955 --> 0:21:06.075 Birch Barlow. 0:21:06.795 --> 0:21:08.995 You know you're in the zeitgeist when you're satirized on 0:21:09.075 --> 0:21:09.635 the Simpsons. 0:21:09.915 --> 0:21:13.475 Good morning, fellow freedomlikers, Birch Barlow, the fourth branch of government, 0:21:13.515 --> 0:21:14.475 the fifty first State. 0:21:14.795 --> 0:21:17.755 The more famous Limbaugh got, the more worried observers got, 0:21:18.275 --> 0:21:21.155 especially about how he talked about talk, how he talked 0:21:21.195 --> 0:21:24.715 about the freedom of speech, how he talked about fairness itself. 0:21:24.835 --> 0:21:28.595 This is also a benevolent dictatorship. I am the dictator. 0:21:28.835 --> 0:21:31.115 There is no First Amendment here except for me. 0:21:32.035 --> 0:21:34.715 Well, right, the First Amendment only constrains the government, not 0:21:34.835 --> 0:21:37.995 a privately owned radio station. But for most of the 0:21:38.035 --> 0:21:41.595 twentieth century there'd been some rules in place, rules that 0:21:41.715 --> 0:21:44.675 date to a time when people understood just how dangerous 0:21:44.795 --> 0:21:58.835 radio could be if broadcasters became dictators. In the nineteen forties, 0:21:59.075 --> 0:22:01.515 a guy named Clifford Dirr got a job offer from 0:22:01.595 --> 0:22:06.355 President Roosevelt. Derr was a lawyer from Alabama. He's best 0:22:06.435 --> 0:22:08.795 known to history for something he did much later in 0:22:08.875 --> 0:22:11.795 the nineteen fifty when he and his wife bailed Rosa 0:22:11.915 --> 0:22:15.755 Parks out of jail. Anyway, in nineteen forty one, FDR 0:22:15.795 --> 0:22:19.955 appointed Dr to the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, and 0:22:20.115 --> 0:22:23.755 I said, what was that? The FCC is the federal 0:22:23.835 --> 0:22:27.075 agency that regulates who can get broadcast licenses to use 0:22:27.115 --> 0:22:30.155 the airwaves, which after all, belonged to the public. 0:22:30.555 --> 0:22:32.955 When I went on to the FCAC, I knew absolutely 0:22:33.075 --> 0:22:36.875 nothing about it. But at the time, we will monitor 0:22:38.115 --> 0:22:39.395 all the access broadcast. 0:22:39.915 --> 0:22:42.915 I did an episode earlier this season called The Inner Front. 0:22:43.475 --> 0:22:46.555 It talks about how the US government monitored Radio Berlin 0:22:46.995 --> 0:22:50.275 and Radio Tokyo. That was part of the FCC's job 0:22:50.435 --> 0:22:53.475 during the Second World War, but the content of those 0:22:53.595 --> 0:22:58.675 enemy broadcasts really changed how Durer and the FCC thought 0:22:58.755 --> 0:23:00.395 about the power of radio. 0:23:00.835 --> 0:23:04.435 My god, this is a terrific medium. The other can 0:23:05.035 --> 0:23:07.955 be magnificent. I can completely ruin you if you've got 0:23:09.395 --> 0:23:12.355 this thing in the wrong hands. So then Adam again 0:23:12.555 --> 0:23:15.435 to take a more place to look at an American broadcast. 0:23:16.715 --> 0:23:19.355 The FCC started enforcing some rules that were on the 0:23:19.395 --> 0:23:23.115 books but that have been mostly ignored, and Der's influence 0:23:23.235 --> 0:23:25.915 would lead to a new rule that would shape broadcasting 0:23:26.035 --> 0:23:29.235 for the next half century. In nineteen forty nine, the 0:23:29.435 --> 0:23:33.595 FCC established what became known as the Fairness doctrine. 0:23:34.755 --> 0:23:38.275 Under the American system of broadcasting, the individual licensees of 0:23:38.395 --> 0:23:42.075 radio stations have the responsibility for determining the specific program 0:23:42.195 --> 0:23:44.475 material to be broadcast over their stations. 0:23:45.395 --> 0:23:47.555 So you could broadcast whatever you wanted. 0:23:47.795 --> 0:23:51.595 Except This choice, however, must be exercised in a manner 0:23:51.675 --> 0:23:54.955 consistent with the basic policy of the Congress that radio 0:23:55.075 --> 0:23:57.475 be maintained as a medium of free speech for the 0:23:57.555 --> 0:24:00.395 general public as a whole, rather than as an outlet 0:24:00.475 --> 0:24:03.835 for the purely personal or private interests of the licensee. 0:24:04.235 --> 0:24:07.035 The fairness doctrine is about the public interest. It says 0:24:07.435 --> 0:24:10.675 the government has an interest in what radio is dinations broadcast. 0:24:11.195 --> 0:24:13.475