Paul Harvey Was ‘Equal Time’ in Fairness Doctrine Era
For decades, he served as America’s one-man end run around the dominant media.
Paul Harvey’s death Saturday did not garner major headlines or sustained attention. Matt Drudge had the related story link off his page within about 12 hours of when the news broke.
At one level, it’s not at all surprising. The man was 90. Though he soldiered on, he was past his peak. His vocal cord problems in 2001 and his bout with pneumonia in 2008 had America mentally prepared for the inevitable.
But those who are unfamiliar with Paul Harvey need to learn about more than his tremendous career success. They need to understand and recognize his significance. Coming within hours of Rush Limbaugh’s stemwinder of a speech at CPAC in Washington, we should not forget that in his heyday Harvey was in many ways what Limbaugh has often called himself: equal time.
To appreciate what Harvey pulled off, recall just how limited the media marketplace was in the 1950s, 1960s, and much of the 1970s. Two things shaped that media landscape: outlet scarcity and the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Each served journalists’ generally left-leaning agenda well.
Being a purveyor of news required a printing press or a broadcast license. The New York Times and the Washington Post largely drove national and international news coverage for U.S. consumption. The Associated Press and its very weak sister United Press International dominated original news-gathering. Though many metro papers leaned conservative, they were largely at the mercy of the wire services, the Times, and the Post for non-local news. The big three networks’ evening newscasts were for all practical purposes the only TV game in town.
Left-leaning media bias was occasionally obvious, as with Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade, the Vietnam War, and Watergate, but it was usually subtle (much of that subtlety ended after Watergate). Establishment media’s day-to-day bias was primarily in story and fact selection, not the outright opinion-as-news barrage we now endure almost daily.
The so-called Fairness Doctrine, which dates back to 1949, was an almost perfect companion to outlet scarcity. The broadcast networks could slant their stories and retain their immunity from the Doctrine’s mandate that “broadcast networks devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance” by saying, “hey, we’re just objectively reporting the news” (uh-huh). The wires, the Times, and the Post were “of course” similarly untouchable. The conservative opinions of writers like Cal Thomas, Bill Buckley, and James Kilpatrick were relegated to local papers’ op-ed pages.
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Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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18 Comments
1. Craig:“Paul Harvey’s death Saturday did not garner major headlines or sustained attention.”
That’s because his first name wasn’t Tim and his last name wasn’t Russert.
Mar 3, 2009 - 10:24 am 2. Steve P.:Joseph McCarthy has never been, nor will he ever be, vindicated for his role as a lying weasel who brought shame to himself, his office and his country. He was nothing but a drunk and a coward with an axe to grind, and used his modicum of political power to bully ordinary citizens and even American soldiers because of his psychotic phobia of communism. Joseph McCarthy should continue to be a lesson to right wing fascists like Bill O’Reilly, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck that there’s only so far you can take your hate-mongering game before rational people realize that you’re just another maniacal, witch-hunting, substance-abusing nutcase.
Mar 3, 2009 - 10:52 am 3. Insufficiently Sensitive:Steve P. is a lesson to left wing fascists like Chris Matthews, Larry King and Rahm Emanuel that there’s only so far you can take your hate-mongering game before rational people realize that you’re just another maniacal, witch-hunting, substance-abusing nutcase.
Mar 3, 2009 - 11:13 am 4. valencio:Paul Harvey will be missed. FYI, he was much better than Rush Limbaugh can ever hope to be.
Mar 3, 2009 - 11:19 am 5. PBCliberal:Paul Harvey’s involvement with his advertisers was far more than verbally “turning the page.” He delivered a personal endorsement; one can view this as being a change leader or sullying the business. Either way, if he hadn’t been first national newscaster to do this, someone else would have.
With his distinctive delivery and a willingness to deliver hard sell copy, it was more like turning a page to find a page two that looked identical to the news on page one which was something old media was once unwilling to do.
Mar 3, 2009 - 11:36 am 6. Shef Rogers:Come on, this article is satire, right?
Mar 3, 2009 - 11:45 am 7. Xdpaul:No, but I’m guessing your reply was an attempt at it, right?
Mar 3, 2009 - 11:59 am 8. Marc Malone:I really hate that the death of a jounalist, any jounalist, is considered news. It’s not. Not to me. They just report the news. They are not the news. In fact, I consider them all to be a dime a dozen and completely and easily replaceable. (The only exception to my mind is Krauthammer. No one else offers his depth of insight.)
#2 Steve P – When are you going to learn? Malkin is indeed right-wing, but Beck is a Libertarian, and O’Reilly is a centrist leaning a (very) little rightwards. Of course, you’re so far Left, that they all seem right-wing to you.
Mar 3, 2009 - 1:09 pm 9. Floyd Looney:Paul Harvey had real class. There is noone in the leftwing media with any class.
Mar 3, 2009 - 1:13 pm 10. Pat J:Blumer demonstrates his ignorance of the Fairness Doctrine with this quote:
“The wires, the Times, and the Post were “of course” similarly untouchable. The conservative opinions of writers like Cal Thomas, Bill Buckley, and James Kilpatrick were relegated to local papers’ op-ed pages.”
The Fairness Doctrine ONLY applied toward broadcast media. It was never applied toward the print media, so of course they were “untouchable.”
Mar 3, 2009 - 1:25 pm 11. Pat J:When I heard Paul Harvey died I felt I lost a friend. He was as all-American as apple pie and a radio pioneer. I’ll miss him greatly.
Mar 3, 2009 - 1:35 pm 12. Pat J:2. Steve P.:
Mar 3, 2009 - 1:36 pm 13. Michael:————
Agreed. And you left out Joe McCarthy fan Ann Coulter.
Paul Harvey was one of a kind and if you never listened to him in his hey day you have no idea what you missed. A good man which is more than I can say for most.
By the way Macarthy was completely wrong about how he want about it and was an unpleasant person so say the least but it turns out that most of his accusations were right.
Yes I know, working to overthrow capitalist pig representative government is a noble work for some but hey, I don’t have to believe it.
Mar 3, 2009 - 3:41 pm 14. Barry:One thing you have to say about Steve P, his sunny, ebullient, cheerful, and even-handed comments brighten every column in PJM.
Mar 3, 2009 - 4:41 pm 15. Jones:>nothing but a drunk and a coward with an axe to grind
Enough about you, Steve P. How do you feel about Paul Harvey?
Mar 3, 2009 - 4:58 pm 16. Tom Blumer:#10,
“It (the Fairness Doctrine) was never applied toward the print media, so of course they were “untouchable.”
It was limited to broadcasters because of the naive notion that there were no entry barriers to newspaper publishing. That’s obviously true; just look at all the new metro dailies that sprang up around the country during the Fairness Doctrine Era (/sarc). Actually, “Not a single, financially viable paper has been launched in …. more than 60 years.”
AP’s arrangement with its subscribing newspapers also constituted a virtual monopoly during that era. UPI got the leftover crumbs.
Mar 3, 2009 - 9:10 pm 17. Trouble:Paul Harvey was a part of my growing-up years for which I am forever grateful – agree or disagree, he always was thought-provoking and entertaining. I never missed his early-AM 5-minute or noonday 15-minute program.
I’m a day early on this, but it’s my favorite “Harveyism”:
“Good morning, Americans… IT’S FRIDAY!”
Vaya con Dios, Mr. Harvey. Be young and strong forever, with your beloved ‘Angel’.
Mar 5, 2009 - 10:33 am 18. tomw:And, now, he knows “The Rest of the Story”.
Thank you Mr. Harvey for all the uplifting enjoyment you brought. Your ebullient spirit and exuberant delivery made the most inane events interesting and pertinent to our daily lives.
Thank you again.
For those that just must cast those pearls of negativity and disbelief, you have missed one of the “Better Men” of our time. Mr. Harvey was part of America, and will be missed.
tom
Mar 6, 2009 - 7:27 am