The Most Influential Christian Talk Radio Network You've Probably Never Heard of
Description
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. This week, reporter Katie Thornton introduces us to 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. Thornton traces 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.
This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.
United States
I wonder if the producers of this series (Divided Dial) are aware of how heavily they're focusing on a supply-side (top-down) explanation versus the more worrying issue of demand. That is, why are so many people and communities such fertile ground for the lies and vitriol of conservative talk radio (and the modern GOP generally)? Surely, recent revelations about the unsurprising motives at Fox show that the producers of such putrid, hate-fueled, jingoistic, theocratic fascism think they're (a) just selling what people want to buy and (b) morally absolved by mere profitability.
@38:37: "... the numbers rose precipitously." I guess words are meaningless.