Broadcast Hysteria: How Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" Changed the Way We Do News...Forever

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 737 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1938, many Americans were scared. As the news from Europe grew increasingly grim, radio listeners had grown accustomed to urgent bulletins about a crisis that threatened to plunge the world into another war. Sensing an opportunity, Orson Welles—not yet a household name—seized on the public's anxiety and, on Halloween night, delivered a broadcast that gave America a scare it would never forget. It was a dramatic adaptation of a science fiction novel about an alien invasion. The fallout from that night would forever change the way news was presented. Here to share the story is A. Brad Schwartz, author of Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In 2020, a group of young woman found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare.
0:05.8	Someone was posting photos.
0:08.1	It was just me naked.
0:09.5	Well, not me, but me with someone else's body part.
0:13.2	This is Levitown, a new podcast from IHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Colliderscope,
0:18.2	about the rise of deep fate pornography and the battle to stop it.
0:22.1	Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.
0:25.4	Find it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30.2	I'm Clayton English.
0:31.2	I'm Greg Glead.
0:32.0	And this is season two of the War on Drugs.
0:34.4	Yes, sir.
0:35.1	Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year,
0:38.2	a lot of the biggest names
0:39.1	in music and sports.
0:41.5	This is kind of starts that in a little bit, man.
0:43.7	We met them at their homes.
0:45.2	We met them at their recording studios.
0:47.4	Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.
0:49.5	It makes it real.
0:50.3	It really does.
0:51.3	It makes it real.
	...

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