Alternative media (U.S. political right)
The term right-wing alternative media in the United States usually refers to internet, talk radio, print, and television journalism. They are defined by their presentation of opinions from a conservative or right wing point of view and politicized reporting as a counter to what they describe as a liberal bias of mainstream media.[1]
History[edit]
Before the 1960s[edit]
During this time, some prominent mainstream newspapers were conservative. William Randolph Hearst, longtime Progressive Democrat, turned increasingly conservative since the 1920s. He initially supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, but broke with him after 1934. Since then, the Hearst chain newspapers opposed the New Deal.[2] Among other prominent newspapers, Los Angeles Times remained staunchly conservative until 1952. During the 1960s, it turned decisively liberal.[3] McCormick family newspapers (particularly the Chicago Tribune) remained staunchly conservative until the late 1960s,[4] as were the Henry Luce magazines like Time and Fortune.[5] By 1936, most newspapers opposed the New Deal. In that year, newspapers in the largest 15 metropolitan cities with 70% circulation supported the Republican candidate Alf Landon against FDR.[6]
At the same time, conservative activists began to found their own magazines to counter alleged liberal bias in mainstream media, and to propagate their conservative point of view. Human Events was founded in 1944 by The Washington Post former editor Felix Morley and publisher Henry Regnery.[7] Libertarian, pro-free market journal The Freeman was founded in 1950 by journalists John Chamberlain, Henry Hazlitt, and Suzanne La Follette.[8] Many conservative intellectuals were associated with it, who later joined the National Review.
In 1955, National Review was founded by the author and journalist William F. Buckley Jr. Its publisher was William A. Rusher. Since its inception, National Review became the beacon of post-war conservative movement. Buckley drew conservative (particularly ex-communist) intellectuals to the magazine, including Russell Kirk, Frank Meyer, Whittaker Chambers, L. Brent Bozell Jr., John Dos Passos, James Burnham, and William Schlamm. Meyer formed the new thesis of fusionism, which included a fusion of traditionalism, libertarianism, and anti-communism. This became the guiding philosophy of the New Right.[9][10][11]
These decades also saw the emergence of conservative talk radio, though their outreach was more limited and more balanced than that of recent decades, due to the Fairness Doctrine. Among pioneering conservative talk radio hosts were Fulton Lewis, Paul Harvey, Bob Grant, Alan Burke, and Clarence Manion, former dean of the Notre Dame Law School.[12][13][14]
1960s to 1980s[edit]
Not long after this, then Vice President Spiro Agnew began attacking the media in a series of speeches as "elitist" and "liberal" — two of the most famous of these were written by Nixon's White House aides Patrick Buchanan and William Safire.
After Nixon's resignation and until the late 1980s, overtly conservative news outlets included the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post and The Washington Times. Conservative magazines included the National Review, The Weekly Standard and the American Spectator.