The War Of The Worlds, and the Golden Age of Radio

In what has become somewhat of a tradition here at LTR, I thought I'd share a little history with you.

Seventy-one years ago yesterday, October 30, 1938, a radio drama aired that really made an impact on the airwaves of America. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, led by Orson Welles, did an adaptation of the H.G. Welles classic science fiction work The War Of The Worlds.

I wrote about this the past two years, here and here. Here's some of what I wrote then:

Welles and company prepared an adaptation of H.G. Wells' science fiction thriller The War Of The Worlds, which told the tale of a violent alien invasion of Earth. And in keeping with the eccentric nature of their on-stage productions, which included Shakespearian works set in Fascist Italy and the Carribean, among various contemporary settings, this adaptation would be unique.

The broadcast, as envisioned by Welles, was to be done as a hoax. Welles was never a fan of overly-political radio commentators such as Father Charles Coughlin, and perhaps wanted to show people that they could not necessarily believe everything they heard on the radio. Most likely, he was inspired by the horrific thought of his ambitious dramas getting clobbered in the ratings by a radio ventriloquist. Something had to be done.

The show started with an ordinary ballroom concert performance (actually the CBS radio orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann) would be interrupted by live news reports and announcer cut-ins, reporters on the scene, sounds of ham radio operators and interviews with fictitious government officials – all relaying a fictional Martian attack on Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Not much more can be added to what I wrote earlier. But audio dramas such as War Of The Worlds, to this day, speak of the power of really good "old time radio" presentations, done before the advent of television. The better ones really had no need for television, as they effectively drew pictures for the listening audience. For example, Dragnet, considered by many to be the best of the old-time radio shows, and definitely the best-produced, was arguably more effective on radio than in its later television incarnation.

The Internet Archive has a mind-boggling selection of old-time radio shows on their site, including drama, comedy, suspense, horror, sci-fi, crime stories, westerns, variety, news broadcasts and much more. And it's all free, allowing anyone to download old episodes of the comedy duo Bob and Ray, or enjoy the Red Scare camp of I Was A Communist For The FBI (highly recommended!).

Listening to radio these days can often be either depressing or boring (or both). Thankfully, the Internet Archive has preserved many, many examples of radio's Golden Age.

For your listening pleasure this Halloween, here is the original Mercury Theatre presentation of War Of The Worlds:



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Vote for the Top Talkers of 2009

It is that time of the year. Time to cast your vote for the "LTR Top Talker of 2009."

It works the same as last year. Check out the poll in the middle column. You will see 40 or so personalities and/or shows listed on the ballot. To make things a bit more interesting this time around, I have added a few television personalities to the mix of typically radio, webcast and podcast personalities, seeing as much of the attention has been paid to the boob tube as of late.

The other names were all picked from the listings in the center column, and consist of all the entrants from last year that still maintain some sort of regular broadcast/webcast/podcast presence. They include some newer shows (Air America has added several this year) and a few local personalities. The names are all listed alphabetically.

Here's what you do: You can select up to ten names. If you only have three, or five, or eight, that's fine. Please go through the list carefully, and vote how you see fit. And don't stuff the ballot box. This ain't Tammany Hall here. One computer/IP address per bracket. Now, you talkers listed can wage campaigns if you'd like. I think it makes it more interesting. Not to mention, it brings the web traffic. But campaign efforts will likely be noted here by either myself or attentive readers, just so everyone knows what's happening.

At the same time, this is really all for fun. That's F-U-N FUN! Let's not take it all so seriously.

And please don't start any ridiculous debates about 'who's liberal' and 'who's not.' Anal retention is most certainly not fun.

The poll closes on December 24, Christmas Eve, at midnight. On January 1, 2010, the results will be announced here. Simple, huh?

For the curious, you can see previous results here.

So, Happy Halloween, and happy voting.

Follow the fun and breaking news on Twitter.

National syndicator picks up Norman Goldman show

Norman Goldman's recently launched radio talk show has been picked up for syndication by Compass Media Networks. The show airs weekdays 6-9p ET, and is being aimed by Compass at progressive talk radio stations.

From the presser:

"Don't know Norman Goldman? You will soon," said Peter Kosann, CEO and Founder of Compass Media Networks. "Norman has compelling rags to righteous life-story, track record of success and -- if given the chance -- will help progressive talk stations win."


"We have methodically developed Norman's brand to give local affiliates a clear and compelling programming opportunity," said Bill Figenshu, President of FigMedia1 and advisor to The Norman Goldman Show. "After guest hosting for Ed Schultz frequently over the past four years, Norman is already well known and liked by audiences and advertisers of Progressive Talk stations from coast to coast. He has recently been added to the Huffington Post as a blogger in addition to his fill in work and full time show.


Affiliate benefits include: reduced network inventory, an all purpose fill in host at no charge, guaranteed market visits also at no charge and a prominent legal analyst made available to the entire cluster.


"I am honored and enthusiastic to work with Compass Media Networks and our radio affiliates." said Norman Goldman, "Each station carrying our show can expect extraordinary service, with a focused attention to audience and revenue development."

Follow the fun and breaking news on Twitter.

When wingnuts get punk'd

Hey, remember all that brewhaha last week about some quotes right-wingers claim Rush Limbaugh didn't say?

Well, nobody really came forward with any proof that he did or didn't say a couple racist quotes attributed to him. Evidently, in in 1998, in the days before internet media watchdogs, someone didn't think of recording Boss Hogg's radio show for future prosperity. And because of just a few 'alleged' quotes, the tighty righties got all wound up, cranking the mockrage machine to 11. Never mind that they conveniently 'ignored' the really nasty quotes Limbaugh's critics did have recorded evidence for. Why let the truth get in the way of good spin?

And now, the tables have turned. The Right Wing Noise Machine has now been caught in a similar fiasco. This one emerged from the cesspools of the conservative smear machine. It claimed that Obama, while attending Columbia University, wrote a senior thesis attacking the Constitution. Here's the excerpt they latched on to:

[T]he Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.

It took awhile, but this little thesis meme eventually snowballed around to other bloggers, who are always foaming at the mouth for anything to attack the president on. The meme went further up the food chain, to The FAUX Nation, then Lou Dobbs. And even the Grand Pillbaugh himself.

Problem is, the thesis story was all bullshit. A hoax. Please, don't be so surprised.

So, how did it all happen? This bogus meme started out on an obscure blog back in August. The story told about how Time Magazine's Joe Klein had obtained ten pages of the thesis. This past Wednesday, Michael Ledeen, a bottom-feeder at Pajamas Media, found the blog entry via Twitter and wrote about it as if it were the holy gospel.

Here's what Ledeen said about it:

Maybe instead of fuming about words that Rush Limbaugh never uttered, the paladins of the free press might ask the president about words that he did write.  Maybe he’d like to parse “the so-called Founders,” for example.  I’d like to know what he thinks of those words today.  And what about the rest of the thesis?

Yeah, what about the rest of the thesis? And what about the persecution of Limbaugh by all those lefty meanies?

The story went viral. Really fast. Other blogs, The FAUX Nation, then Dobbs, then the Fat Man himself. Limbaugh said about the thesis, "This little boy in college" had "disdain" for Constitution. Yes, he called our black president "little boy." Now, if that ain't racist, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, nobody on the right could pull their heads out of their asses and actually do a little 'fact-checking' before they went nuclear over the alleged smoking gun thesis.

Finally, Klein himself took Ledeen to the woodshed, claiming the whole thesis story was "nonsense."

"I wonder about what the willingness to take this cheesy crap as gospel says about Ledeen's--and Boss Rush's--sensibility," Klein wrote. "Actually, on second thought, I don't wonder all that much."

Oops!

John Lennon once wrote, "Instant karmas gonna get you, gonna knock you right on the head." And that's what happened next. Yes, the story was bogus. In fact, it was initially labeled as 'satire.' Heck, the same blog had even done it before!

So, an obviously embarrassed Michael Ledeen, tail between legs, issued sheepish apologies all around.

But the fantasy was better than reality for some, as the story spread further. Bad enough that some pissant bloggers were spreading more fertilizer, but Lou Dobbs? Of CNN? Even after Klein stated the story was false? C'mon!

But one has to wonder, will Brent Bozell and the usual gang of idiots go after their own for spreading blatant lies about President Obama? Like he did when we justifiably went after Limbaugh? Of course not. It's nothing new really, since right-wingers spread lies about Obama everyday.

Come to think of it, didn't Dan Rather and his staff get the axe for reporting a story that actually had some truth to it? So, what about Dobbs? What about Fatboy?

Claiming "I have had this happen to me," Limbaugh said he didn't care if thesis quotes are fake, "I know Obama thinks it" Yeah, just like we don't care whether or not you condoned slavery, we just know you think it.

So, after weeks of whining and pissing and moaning about how that 'eeeevil librul meedya' gang-piled him to keep him from buying a football team, he knowingly went on his radio show and proceeded to spread lies about Obama, even after he found out they were fake. Sorry Rush, your credibility, whatever you had of it, is now even lower than a snake's ass.

As for attacking him on the constitution, Obama taught constitutional law in college. Limbaugh was a disc jockey. I'd put more faith in Obama's knowledge of how our country works rather than a guy who buys hillbilly heroin at the Denny's parking lot.

The best reaction on this comes from Gawker.com:

It's not like anyone's behavior here is unexpected or even all that terrible, it's mostly just hilarious. Once again: if you make something up and put it on the internet, Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh will believe it.

So true.

Update from Thom Hartmann

Just got this in my inbox from Thom Hartmann, and I thought I'd share in its entirety (as Sundays can be a bit lazy):

We haven't been issuing press releases as this stuff has happened, so if you want to be the one to break the news feel free to put this stuff into your own words...

1. In addition to our commercial Dial-Global syndication, we're now a Pacifica affiliated show, providing a 3-hour live and delayed show to Pacifica non-profit and community stations around the world *with no commercial content* through the Pacifica audioport. We're doing this by simultaneously generating two identical shows; one commercial and one non-commercial (where the commercial breaks are filled with content like Labor Radio News, Hightower comments, a Science show, etc.). As a result of this, we've picked up just in the past few months since this affiliation began several dozen new stations, including one that covers an eighth of England and one that covers about a third of Ghana. Yep - our show is the only US-based mainstream political talk show, left or right, that (so far as I know) is carried now on local independent radio stations on 3 continents. And we're on more stations, have more listeners, and have more live clearances then any other progressive show in the country.

2. We also started doing a TV show - simultaneous with our radio show. We first migrated it to our new channel on YouTube, with whom we started a commercial relationship a few months ago, at www.youtube.com/thomhartmann. The show was picked up last week by Free Speech TV (on Dish Network satellite TV) and is now carried live from 2-3 PM ET following "Democracy Now" and "GritTV." We're also producing a half-hour TV show that will begin in the next week or two on FSTV, with most of its content cut down from our 3-hour radio/TV show. We'll also be offering this half-hour show as a video podcast.

3. We've re-established our relationship with Air America in that they're carrying my show on their Washington DC radio station and on their website. We're working on ways to strengthen that relationship, and pleased to see our name again on their brand new website at www.airamerica.com and that their DC listeners can hear our show on the weekends. (So our show is now "brought to our listeners - and viewers - by Dial-Global, Air America, Pacifica, YouTube, and Free Speech TV"...)

Keep up the great work with LTR, and if there's ever any way we can help, let me know!

Thom