Is Lying On the Radio...Legal?

On the Media

WNYC Studios

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Highly politicized, partisan companies like Salem Media Group have a hold on the airwaves — and they don’t plan to give it up. This week, Senior Vice President of Salem Phil Boyce speaks candidly to reporter Katie Thornton about the personalities he handpicked to spread Salem’s message and about the company’s plans to expand into the media world off the airwaves. Peddling election denialism seems to be a solid business model — but is it legal?

This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here. The Divided Dial is reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. 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	On this week's On The Media, we conclude our investigation into talk radio with a question.
0:07.0	Is the repeated broadcasting of disinformation, election lies, and conspiracy theories legal?
0:14.0	The FCC's news distortion policy prohibits deliberate staging, slanting, and falsifying of news.
0:21.0	So, case closed, right? Actually no.
0:25.0	Between 1969 and 2018, the FCC has ruled against broadcasters in only eight of 128 published cases of distortion.
0:34.0	And it's dismissed many, many more cases without even investigating them.
0:38.0	In other words, no one has lost their license specifically due to only a violation of the news distortion rule.
0:46.0	Are there any solutions available to write the ship and bring some kind of balance back to the public airwaves?
0:53.0	Lots more questions and even some answers after this.
1:00.0	From WNYC in New York, this is On The Media. I'm Brick Gladstone.
1:06.0	Two weeks ago on the show, we introduced you to Salem Media, a company that among many other things, operates a network of Christian talk radio stations
1:16.0	whose hosts have disseminated the big lie in other conspiracy theories.
1:21.0	We learned about Salem's relationship with right-wing political strategists, pollsters, and big donors.
1:28.0	I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people they never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now.
1:37.0	Then on last week's show, we took a detour from the Salem story to examine the rise of the right on talk radio writ large.
1:45.0	And how years of erosion of FCC guidelines and goodwill led to the talk radio landscape that we have today.
1:53.0	What we found was that conservative talk dominated liberal or progressive talk by Tenda1.
1:59.0	This week, we're airing the final installment of our investigation.
2:04.0	In this episode, Katie Thornton goes in search of answers to the many questions that came up as she reported the story of how our public airwaves are being used.
2:14.0	And she gets to put some of those questions to a man who is very well placed to answer them.
2:21.0	But for now, here's our reporter, Katie Thornton.
2:29.0	A couple of years ago, on a long and lonely drive through Northern Minnesota, I flipped on the radio to keep me company.
	...

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