{"id":124,"date":"2025-06-06T14:23:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T18:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/?p=124"},"modified":"2025-06-06T14:23:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T18:23:56","slug":"state-and-station-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/06\/06\/state-and-station-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"State and Station \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Originally written on 4\/23\/2024<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Recently, Uri Berliner, long-time senior business editor and reporter at National Public Radio (NPR), wrote an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">essay<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> criticizing NPR\u2019s absence of viewpoint diversity in that \u201cpeople at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.\u201d Nothing is intrinsically wrong with that except that National Public Radio receives a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2023\/04\/19\/npr-pbs-are-government-funded\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">significant portion of its budget<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> from Federal Government sources. A firestorm emerged from the essay, and Berliner resigned, but the episode raises an issue: What should the relationship between the media and the state be?\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">There is nothing new nor particularly improper about a publication or news organization having an ideological or political slant. In the 1800s, political parties started many, if not most, American newspapers. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/451804\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">A 1937 study revealed that 60 US newspaper mastheads included the word Democrat, 45 included Republican, and 22 included Independent<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">. Likewise, no one expects the <\/span><b><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Nation<\/span><\/i><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> or <\/span><b><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">National Review<\/span><\/i><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> magazines to have the same political slant.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In August 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War, Thomas Grandin, a journalist and future war correspondent, wrote a short book entitled The <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cPolitical Use of Radio.\u201d<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0 It outlined the impact the new-fangled medium had on national political discourse. In totalitarian Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia, the state monopolized radio transmissions. Radio receivers were widely distributed in \u201ccafes, schools and public squares\u201d and meant to be ever-present to disseminate government propaganda. Listening to unauthorized radio transmissions was a punishable offense.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">French radio was partially privately owned and partly state-run. Nevertheless, all news broadcasts were subject to government \u201cverification.\u201d The British Broadcasting Corporation monopolized airwaves in the United Kingdom, although Grandin characterized state censorship as \u201cextremely gentle.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">American radio was privately owned. In 1937, some representatives in Congress worked to establish a US government-owned radio station to counter anti-democratic short-wave transmission to Latin America from fascist powers. American radio executives strongly objected to a government-owned radio station. An industry spokesman denounced it as \u201csuggesting a Nazi philosophy\u201d and insisting that private facilities would always be at the disposal of the ruling Administration. Interestingly, the USA\u2019s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which controlled all domestic short-wave licenses, adopted a rule requiring all American transmission to promote \u201cgood-will\u201d among nations and declared itself the judge of what constituted such \u201cgood-will.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Government and news media will always be connected as they have an inherently symbiotic relationship. We tend to share the American prejudice of 85 years ago for private ownership.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally written on 4\/23\/2024 Recently, Uri Berliner, long-time senior business editor and reporter at National Public Radio (NPR), wrote an essay criticizing NPR\u2019s absence of viewpoint diversity in that \u201cpeople at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.\u201d Nothing is intrinsically wrong with that except that National Public Radio receives a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1212,1207,1203,1204,1211,1205,1199,996,1202,1208,1210,1200,1206,1209,1201],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-american-media-history","tag-fcc","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-government-funding","tag-ideology-in-media","tag-journalism-ethics","tag-media-and-government","tag-media-bias","tag-npr","tag-political-communication","tag-press-freedom","tag-public-broadcasting","tag-radio-history","tag-state-and-media-relations","tag-viewpoint-diversity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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