Primetime Propaganda

by Ben Shapiro

  This is false and insulting. As we’ll see, even successful conservatives who come out of the closet in Hollywood often experience worse discrimination than gays who come out of the closet in society more broadly. They lose friends. They lose contacts. Most important, they lose jobs.

  Most liberals in Hollywood aren’t insane anticonservative jackasses. Far from it: Most are forthright, kind, and generous people who want to use their talents to benefit humanity. Hollywood liberals are not all Elizabeth Taylors, getting married time and again, or Lindsey Lohans, boozing and smoking and sexing their way up the ladder. Most are good family people with loving spouses and happy, well-adjusted children. Many of them don’t even try to infuse their politics into their shows, and some even bend over backward to present a conservative viewpoint.

  But there are plenty who are more than willing to shut conservatives and the conservative viewpoint out of the business. And when conservatives shut themselves out because they object to liberalism on television, they do liberals a favor. In Hollywood, we’re still looking for our Jackie Robinsons to go silently about their business, proving with each script that talent doesn’t only come with Democratic Party charter membership.

  It will take time. Liberals dominate this business, and many discriminate. Not only do they discriminate—they use their power to promote their choice political causes in an obvious, hamhanded, sometimes brutal fashion. And those causes are almost universally anti–traditional values, pro–government intervention, and anti-war.

  It has ever been thus. Since the very outset, many of television’s power brokers have seen their mission as something larger than pure entertainment: they’ve seen it as promulgation of “progressive” social values. They were and are, after all, intelligent and principled and far-seeing men and women—artists. They weren’t interested in perpetuating the vast Philistine wasteland of television. They wanted to do something better. And so they began to push the envelope of culture, consciously or unconsciously, trying to open and liberalize the American audience just a bit at a time.

  Because they were crusaders who thought alike, they hired alike. Even as television creators ignored more popular conservative programming in favor of transgressing age-old taboos, their social radicalism alienated them from the very society they were busily reshaping in their image. That alienation led them to a sort of ideological nepotism: in addition to helping out relatives, like previous Hollywood dynasties (the Laemmles, Coppolas, or Barrymores), the new Hollywood leaders promoted those who hung out in their social circle. This liberal feedback loop is now self-sustaining: Past liberal luminaries help new liberal stars; new liberal stars create new liberal programming; the new liberal firmament enshrines the old liberal benefactors as everlasting contributors to “social progress.”

  In fact, television’s development can be described as a vast social content feedback loop. Television, perhaps more than any other business, is reliant on its successful measurement of the Zeitgeist. Every night’s Nielsen ratings are an exercise in social science—what are Americans concerned about? What are they looking for? This constant emphasis on “catching the wave” in terms of social trends means that executives and creators don’t merely perceive themselves as artists and businessmen—they perceive themselves as barometers of public opinion. They cannot lead the public too much, lest they lose contact with the Zeitgeist completely; nor can they lag behind it, lest their competitors capture the commercial high ground.

  Thankfully for television’s biggest hitters, they control the Zeitgeist. Not wholly, of course—culture is far too complex to be led in top-down fashion by television executives and creators. But what they can do is identify “realistic” trends, then bring those trends to the public’s attention, thereby heightening and accentuating the trend. Unsurprisingly, the trends the television executives and writers focus on are almost invariably liberal. We have been speeding consistently down the liberal slippery slope for decades.

  This process is not irreversible. As the television industry morphs into an Internet/television cyborg, the market is beginning to open for nonliberal creators and executives. The process we are watching in relation to the print medium applies also to television—more and more creative minds and sponsors are being given the means and the methods to contribute by the cheapness and convenience of the Internet. The Internet is Prometheus, and it has brought fire down from the television gods. All that is left is for men and women with diverse political viewpoints to learn how to use it.

  Nevertheless, the gods retain a considerable advantage in resources and talent. After all, they have a sixty-year head start. Television as it is currently structured is not going to transform overnight—remember, Brandon Tartikoff, former head of NBC, was talking about the synthesis of television and the Internet back in the late 1980s. It could be several more decades in the wilderness for conservatives before they reach the Promised Land of the Internet/television merge. As Barbara Fisher, vice president of original programming for the Hallmark Channel, told me, “This whole fear that everything is digital, that everybody’s going to watch TV on Hulu or on their computer or on their iPod—again, a little exaggerated. I mean, I couldn’t watch a show on an iPod.”11 The Internet age is coming, but it may take its sweet time.

  In the meantime, it is vital to examine the history and current state of the television industry. Television was, is, and will remain for the foreseeable future a powerful tool for foisting messages on the American public. One of Newton Minow’s successors at the FCC, the LBJ-appointed Nicholas Johnson, expressed the power of television succinctly: “All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?”

  The answer is simple: It’s teaching liberal messages. Art has always taken politics as its subject, but art has never been consumerized to the extent we see now. Virtually every person in the United States watched All in the Family during the 1970s. How many people laughed at Archie, telling themselves that his viewpoint was the conservative viewpoint? Every girl above the age of twelve during the 1990s eventually got the Rachel haircut. How many viewers picked up the Friends politics, too? Television brought down the Soviet Union by showing those living under the Communist jackboot the lush lifestyle of the folks on Dallas; television has the power to destroy fundamental American institutions in the same way.

  The transformation of American culture at the hands of television’s most powerful people is a story that has remained untold for decades. It is a story we must hear, because it is a story that continues every night in our living rooms. It affects adults, teens, and children. It touches everyone who touches that dial.

  How did the left take over TV? How did the most important invention of all time fall into the hands of like-minded liberals with active and insidious political intent—and how did we swallow their product without noticing?

  To answer that question, we must begin at the beginning.

  The Secret Political History of Television

  How Television Became Liberal

  History, they say, is written by the winners. That is certainly true of television.

  The story of television, as told by those in the industry, goes something like this: Television’s formational years were childish and immature, catering to the lowest common denominator and afraid of controversy. That’s why programming looked conservative in the old days. Over time, as America became more liberal, television began to reflect that nascent liberalism, taking new risks and depicting new realities. Liberal television was rewarded with profits and ratings, and happiness and contentment spread over the land. But it was not to last. The rise of Reagan and the Moral Majority soon ignited a battle between the creative knights in shining armor and the dastardly conservative censors. Consonance was eventually achieved by corporations, who were able to moderate television content in order to please conservatives while simultaneously allowing a limited amount of creative freedom. Overall, in this view, t
elevision has lagged behind social change, with a few notable exceptions. Television has always followed the market, never led it; television has always offered something for everyone.

  It’s a convenient story. That narrative achieves certain goals for the powers-that-be. First, it means that they can portray themselves as political moderates while still occasionally speaking truth to power. This version of history obscures the more conservative past in favor of the more liberal present—it castigates long-dead 1950s pioneers as ignorant and paints the sainted creators of the late 1960s and early 1970s as visionaries. As for the current crop of creators, this flattering history characterizes them as cutting-edge moderates: They haven’t propagandized on behalf of liberal values, but at the same time, they’ve broken new ground in terms of racial tolerance and sexual orientation in particular.

  Second, this narrative characterizes television as a commercial medium impervious to criticisms about content—we don’t generally criticize McDonald’s for providing Big Macs, even if they’re unhealthy, so why should we criticize the television industry for providing liberal programming to eager consumers? Furthermore, those in the television industry can always cite business practicalities as the reason for greasing the cultural slippery slope. They can blame corporations for failures to push the progressive agenda, but take credit for any progressivism they sneak into their programming.

  In short, this history is a giant version of the Oscars: a self-congratulatory event designed to cast today’s creators—and certain sainted creators of yesteryear—as heroes in both artistic and political terms while utterly ignoring the achievements of those who launched the industry.

  There’s only one problem: This version of history isn’t true.

  The secret history of television is a story of how an industry was taken over by the left, through both conscious infiltration and unconscious socialization. Conservative entrepreneurs broke open the new industry— and in the name of profit, they employed the best-in-breed entertainers, who all happened to be liberals. The conservatives looked to cater to rural viewers, knowing that rural affiliates were those most likely to censor programming; they therefore got both rural and urban viewers. As the medium matured, more and more urban-based entertainment-oriented businesspeople began infiltrating the executive ranks, changing and shaping the goals of television, altering its target audience from rural to supposedly more valuable and sophisticated urban audiences. With the new target audience in hand, television consistently pushed itself farther and farther to the left, squeezing out all those who disagreed, using the tools of entertainment to forward social messaging. Now, the television industry is largely conservative-free, and the product shows it.

  CONSERVATIVE BEGINNINGS: THE GRAND OLD MEN OF RADIO

  Television began with radio.

  The radio business, just like other businesses, began as a vehicle for creating products and services that would generate revenue. Even though FCC regulations required that radio serve the public interest, the first executives in radio were interested in profit first, last, and always. Most of them were Jewish Garment District types who launched themselves to the technological and cultural cutting edge using their newly acquired American freedoms to build their businesses from the ground up.

  The consummate capitalist was David Sarnoff, the ruddy-faced, short, balding president of the Radio Corporation of America and founder of NBC. He was a Jewish immigrant from Minsk with a gift for both self-promotion and business strategy.1 His love for television made him one of the medium’s first funders and proponents. Politically, Sarnoff was right-wing. During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower made him a communication consultant and gave him the rank of brigadier general, a title he carried around with him for the rest of his life. He often trumpeted “traditional” American values and the total defeat of global Communism.2 As a product of capitalism, Sarnoff was an ardent defender of it.3

  Sarnoff’s counterpart at CBS was William S. Paley. Like Sarnoff, Paley was an enterprising Jewish kid with an ego that would make Orson Welles look amateur by comparison—as a child he added a nonexistent middle initial S. on a school application, for the prestige. If Sarnoff was a great businessman, Paley was even better—or at least, less principled. In the television industry, independently owned stations decide which network’s programming they want to carry—that’s how they become affiliates. Paley employed strategies designed to steal Sarnoff’s affiliates, offering stations CBS programming for free, in return demanding that they play commercials sold by CBS. Paley didn’t steal just Sarnoff’s affiliates—he stole Sarnoff’s stars. He pirated stars from other networks, including Fats Waller, Bing Crosby, Will Rogers, and Jack Benny.4 He was, as the New York Times called him upon his death, “A 20th-century visionary with the ambitions of a 19th-century robber-baron.”5

  Unlike Sarnoff, Paley was a political chameleon. He was an enthusiastic opponent of Joseph McCarthy, declaring that CBS deserved credit for McCarthy’s destruction. At the same time, under his leadership, CBS forced its employees to take a loyalty oath stating that they had never been members of the Communist Party. He was a lifelong member of the GOP, but he did not shy away from kowtowing to the FDR White House to maintain his broadcast licenses.6

  Paley’s programming perspective was just as mercenary—and he wasn’t shy about it. As he put it, “What we are doing is satisfying the American public. That’s our first job.”7 He had no interest in converting viewers and listeners to high-minded programming; CBS, he said, “cannot calmly broadcast programs we think people ought to listen to if they know what is good for them.”8 For Bill Paley, only one thing mattered: the bottom line.

  The leadership at ABC thought differently—they looked to shape the audiences to meet their programming rather than vice versa. At that network, the third member of the original television executive triumvirate, Leonard Goldenson, held the reins. Like Sarnoff and Paley, Goldenson grew up in a Jewish household. Unlike Sarnoff and Paley, however, he was a liberal, born and bred.

  Goldenson’s family was moderately wealthy, which allowed him to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School—a rare accomplishment for Jews of that time. After working as a lawyer at Paramount, Goldenson managed to finagle ownership of the company’s theater business, which he then sold off in order to buy up the nascent American Broadcasting Company, a former subsidiary of NBC.

  Goldenson remained politically liberal throughout his career. Early on, he put conservative firebrand Billy Graham on the air in Hour of Decision in a successful attempt to score ratings. Then he reversed himself, citing his belief in separation of television and religion. Goldenson reviled legislators’ concern with sex and violence on television.9 While he remained a businessman like Sarnoff and Paley, he did not shy away from injecting social messages into programming. During the McCarthy hearings, he ordered all 187 hours aired live, at a cost of $600,000. “I felt that if the public could see just how McCarthy operated, they would understand just how ridiculous a figure he really was,” Goldenson later wrote.10 This was not news coverage—this was coverage as commentary. Along the same lines, Goldenson considered Barbara Walters the epitome of reportorial courage for playing up to Fidel Castro.11 His programming followed the same pattern, even though Goldenson claimed he was only catering to the market.12

  THE WILDERNESS YEARS FOR LIBERALS: 1950–1960

  The respective viewpoints of Sarnoff, Paley, and Goldenson led the networks to evolve in different directions. NBC became a semi-elitist mouthpiece geared toward informing the public; CBS became a ratings juggernaut interested almost solely in revenue; ABC focused on sex and violence.

  At NBC, General Sarnoff deferred to his chosen deputy, Pat Weaver, a highly educated Dartmouth graduate. Weaver’s philosophy was simple: Make money by educating the audience. Weaver wanted America to be a place in which “every man is an Athenian.”13 He dubbed his effort Operation Frontal Lobes.14

  Weaver
’s strategy could only work if he broadcast—that is, attracted as many viewers at a time as possible. He shunned the idea of gearing programming toward target audiences, a trap he felt the movies had fallen into. “The advertising responsibility is to reach everyone,” he said. He pursued that goal by programming “spectaculars,” large-scale live events designed to draw in “light” viewers.15 But how could he fund the spectaculars?

  He came up with the funding in a stroke of genius that would have massive implications for the entire industry: Instead of advertisers purchasing entire shows or producing the shows themselves, NBC would produce its own shows and allow advertisers to buy segments rather than entire shows. This was a breakthrough for the networks—instead of having to keep one advertiser ecstatic, they could now keep seven or eight advertisers relatively happy. No longer would advertisers, the parties most responsive to the public, be able to dictate what the networks broadcast; now the networks themselves would dictate their programming, and advertisers could buy only in small chunks. Increased network control, insulated from the feedback of individual advertisers, meant more liberal control of the industry over time.

  At CBS, the management cared far less about teaching America than winning the numbers battle. Dictator Paley brought on a statistics-minded second-in-command, Frank Stanton, a radio research guru with a doctorate in psychology from Ohio State University.

  Stanton’s philosophy was as capitalistic as his boss’s, a direct contrast to the later intellectualism of Newton Minow. “Television, like radio,” he said in 1948, “should be a medium for the majority of Americans, not for any small or special groups; therefore its programming should be largely patterned for what these majority audiences want and like.”16 Stanton’s statistical knowledge, combined with Paley’s populist programming tendencies, made CBS the leader in the ratings for much of the 1950s.