Episode 1 - The Divided Dial

On the Media

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!

Episode 1: The True Believers

In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. We meet the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you’ve never heard of.

The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg’s CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Transcript

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0:00.0	A few weeks after the 2020 election, Radio host Eric Mataxus had one of his frequent guests
0:26.6	back on the air.
0:33.6	Doug Mastriano, freshman Pennsylvania State Senator and recently defeated 2022 Republican
0:39.5	nominee for governor, was at the fan guard, promoting allegations of widespread fraud
0:44.8	right after the 2020 election.
0:47.6	And so was conservative Christian talk show host Eric Mataxus.
0:52.3	So this was familiar fair to his listeners.
0:56.0	What happens if these people don't join you in this?
1:00.3	You could kiss fair and free elections goodbye.
1:04.2	Mastriano had a plan to get the state's general assembly to intervene in the election results.
1:09.9	It was a legal long shot, or more accurately, and impossibility, even the plans creator,
1:16.2	Trump lawyer John Eastman, said it wouldn't hold up in court.
1:20.2	Mataxus and Mastriano begged listeners to get their senators on board.
1:26.0	I just want to say to my audience, if you live in Pennsylvania and you don't do this,
1:31.5	when things go to hell, which they will, I want you to know you're responsible.
1:40.5	But right before this interview with Mastriano, something unexpected happened, something
1:46.2	that Eric Mataxus called divine intervention.
1:51.0	Mastriano got a call.
1:53.0	Hey, sir, I'm here with the Eric Mataxus.
1:55.4	He wants to know if you want any message you go out on the show today.
1:58.4	From lame duck president, Donald Trump, seeing how the attempt to change the Pennsylvania
2:03.0	election results was going.
	...

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