America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power

C-SPAN Networks ^ | September 5, 2004

[billorites]

On C-SPAN's Booknotes tonight at 8:00pm. Liberal media activists beware! Richard A. Viguerie, venture capitalist of the conservative movement (described as the “funding father of the right”) and David Franke, a founder of the conservative movement, detail how conservatives—shut out by the liberal mass media of the 1950s and ’60s—came to power by utilizing new and alternative media, and then created their own mass media.

Viguerie and Franke give a first-hand account of how the right took power by using direct mail, talk radio, cable news TV, and later the Internet. Can liberals do the same? This is the first “insider” book to expose the link between the conservative political revolution and the alternative media revolution.

Viguerie, Chairman of American Target Advertising Inc., pioneered political ideological direct mail in the 1960s and 1970s, and is credited with helping to build the conservative movement that elected President Reagan in 1980. Franke served on the editorial staffs of Human Events and National Review, and was Senior Editor of Arlington House Publishers and the Conservative Book Club. Since 1997 he has been editorial director of the New Media News Corp., working with Viguerie on newsletter and Internet projects.

[BenLurkin]

When did conservatives take power?

[Bahbah]

But why would they have to work around the MSM. There is no bias! </sarcasm>

[tet68]

Nov. 2nd 2004

[TASMANIANRED]

Power to the people.

[BenLurkin]

Here's hopin'!

[Boundless]

But I thought Al Gore invented the internet,
and Howard Dean was the first to fully
exploit it for politics?

What happened?

[Paul_B]

> shut out by the liberal mass media of the 1950s and ’60s

and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s.

> Can liberals do the same?

Why do they have to? They still have the MSM, more so than ever.

[isthisnickcool]

When did conservatives take power?

OK. It was me. I snuck in the window and took it. I should have said something but I forgot about it. The power is in the closet. I left it under a Winchester my dad gave me. Or under my underwear.I'm not sure so I better check.

[edwin hubble]

"When did conservatives take power?"

1980
and
1994

[DannyTN]

"Can liberals do the same?"

"Why do they have to?"

Maybe he means "Can liberal do the same...shut conservatives out of the alternative media, like they did the mass media."

[BenLurkin]

Well . . . we came close in 1980 and 1994.

[Syncro]

"Taking" the power doesn't quite do it.

It is using it effectively that counts.

The Democrats are vicious and ruthless. When they have the House and Senate the Republicans capitulate to them too much.

When the Republicans have the Congress, the Democrats filibuster and use their dirty tricks to still have power.

Case in point and I don't remember if this was on the state or Federal level but a vote went wrong for the Democrats.

So they re-voted and flipped all the switches in their favor at the chairs for all of the Congressmen that weren't there.

Illegal, underhanded and etc. But they pulled it off.

[joesnuffy]

Liberals own the MSM and most people come out of the liberal fog as soon as they hit the 'real' world and get jobs...pay taxes...are no longer subject to the daily brainwashing of college professor commies...get married...pay taxes...have kids....pay taxes....

And start hearing from their older friends...as they no longer identify with their college buddies
and start thinking apart from college....the old man...dad and grandpa suddenly get a whole lot smarter...and Rush starts making a lot more sense...

The MSM is seen for what it really is...by those who are able to fight off the fog of their public education..

The new underground media is for them....the left is immersed in fog and the MSM can only keep filling their heads with the same mind dulling leftist crap...its not new and exiting since you've been hearing it since grade school....

The new radical is CONSERVATIVE.....

And the left HATES THAT...because 30 yrs ago that was the lefts domain....now the old leftie farts are entrenched and boring...and old....and sloppy....

When a person is under the age of 30 and conservative....he has no heart

When a person is over the age of 30 and liberal....he has no brain.....

imo

[Balding_Eagle]

Thanks for posting this, I'd have missed it.

[bilhosty]

I really don't understand how anyone can say the conservatives were shut out of the mas media in the 1950's or even the early 60's. True the TV news was very liberal at the time, but look at all the conservative papers at the time Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily news, Newsday,St Louis Globe-Democrat,I also think the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Knight-ridder chains were conservative. Also time,Look and Readers Digest. Were Republican. I think it was a golden age of conservative news.

[azcap]

Can liberals do the same?
No - The right was shut out of the media for decades but the Left is not now and has never been shut out of the alternative media. The key to understanding the change is that the liberal message is based on ideological lies and appeals to emotion. That strategy only works when they control all of the media. Their message is still getting out but now the people also hear the Right's message based on logic and reason. The Left's arguments cannot withstand honest debate or an examination of the facts. How long would the Soviet Union have lasted if they a had a free media, free to report the starvation and famines, free to report the pogroms and persecution? Ideologies built on lies cannot tolerate any infection of truth. Now that the Left has lost their once total control of the mass media they will be hard pressed to regain popularity. Proof of this can be seen in the Left's vicious struggle to censor and or denigrate the alternative media (PC speech codes, equal time regulations, the labeling of all Right leaning writers, talk hosts, networks etc as racists, bigots, and fascists.

[Faraday]

Conservatives will have taken power when government spending (year over year) falls an appreciable amount AND no judge interferes with the process. We have a LONG way to go.

[John123]

...how the right took power by using direct mail, talk radio, cable news TV, and later the Internet.Can liberals do the same?

Not looking good. See Air America, DU and CNN.

[Paul_B]

Amen. Excellent post.