The Divided Dial: Episode 2 - From Pulpit to Politics

On the Media

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 2: From Pulpit to Politics

How did the little-known Salem Media Group come to have an outsized political influence? In this episode we trace the company’s rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right. We learn that Salem is tightly networked with right wing political strategists, pollsters, big donors, far right leaders and Republican party mainstays thanks to their involvement with the Council for National Policy — a secretive group of Evangelical and conservative leaders. For decades, the CNP has been working behind the scenes to get a specific, highly influential subset of voters to act. And Salem has been a megaphone for their cause.

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	This is episode two of the divided dial. Our brand new five-part series about the power of talk radio and of one company in particular, Salem Media.
0:11.0	A little known but highly influential network whose hosts trade in right-wing conspiracies and election denial.
0:19.0	In this episode, host Katie Thornton is going to unpack how the company came to be movers and shakers in the political world.
0:27.0	But honestly, you're going to want to go back and listen to the first one if this is the first you're hearing about this series. Enjoy.
0:41.0	Hi Katie.
0:42.0	Hi Adam, how are you?
0:44.0	I called up reporter Adam Piori last fall and I happened to catch him just as a storm was slamming his home state of Connecticut.
0:52.0	Good, although my power just went out so my I'm using the personal hotspot on my I wanted to learn more about Salem and Adam who has written several lengthy articles about the company is a good guy to ask.
1:08.0	The way that I found out about Salem was I was looking at major campaign donors to both Democrats and Republicans.
1:15.0	At the time for George Bush, I kept seeing Salem communications.
1:22.0	This was in 2004 when George W. Bush was running for re-election.
1:25.0	This will be the beginning of a new term to make America a safer place.
1:31.0	I knew who many of the donors were, the major Republican donors, but I never heard of Salem.
1:38.0	So I began poking around to see what Salem was.
1:42.0	What Adam found when he was poking around was that Salem, though not the largest radio network in the country and lacking the name recognition of Fox News or Bright Bart, is nevertheless a powerhouse political influencer.
2:04.0	I'm Katie Thornton and this is the divided dial, a five-part podcast series from on the media.
2:10.0	About how one side of the political spectrum came to dominate talk radio and how one company is using the airwaves to launch a right-wing media empire.
2:21.0	In this episode, we're going to dig into Salem's 50 year backstory from their scrappy start to where they are today.
2:30.0	It's a history that paralleled the growth of the national religious right and led to the company's longstanding involvement in a secretive group of powerful evangelicals.
2:39.0	The powerful evangelical leaders, big donors and mainstays of both the Republican Party and the far right.
2:57.0	Our story begins, fittingly, in a small southern Virginia town called Errorat, named after the final destination of Noah's Ark.
3:06.0	Here in 1935, against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a boy named Stuart Epperson was born into a family of tobacco farmers.
	...

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