Say No to the Liberal Media: Conservatives and Criticism of the News Media in the 1970s

Abstract

"Say No to the Liberal Media: Conservatives and Criticism of the News Media in the 1970s" examines the significance of news media criticism among conservative opponents of liberalism in the 1970s. Critiques of the mainstream news media were levied by a wide array of conservatives of the 1970s, ranging from Republican party centrists to the racist and anti-Semitic Far Right. Conservatives criticized a wide range of news media organizations, including the three TV news networks; nationally influential publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, and Newsweek; and local newspapers such as the Boston Globe, Louisville Courier-Journal, and Detroit Free Press.

Criticism of the news media was often motivated by anticommunist ideology, class-based resentments of liberal elites, and racially motivated opposition to civil rights. I demonstrate that criticism of the local news media was vital to grassroots conservative movements of the 1970s, particularly in movements against court-ordered busing for school integration in cities such as Boston, Louisville, and Detroit.

I also show that criticism of the news media was an integral component of the antiliberal activism of conservatives including white supremacist members of the Citizens' Councils of America, opponents of feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment, Christian anticommunists of the 1970s, and anti-Semites who argued that the "Jewish news media" were active participants in a communist conspiracy. "Say No to the Liberal Media" also demonstrates that a thriving network of conservative publications was active during the 1970s. Such publications were crucial in disseminating the idea of liberal news media bias, and they often positioned themselves as pro-American, anticommunist truth-telling alternatives to the allegedly distorted and biased news provided by major newspapers and magazines and the three television news networks.