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How End the Panic in Radio-TV?
The Demagogic Half-Truth vs. the “Liberal” Half Lie
- Abstract
THE air waves have been jittery since the appearance in 1950 of a paper-bound booklet, Red Channels, a “Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television,” published by three former FBI men, John G. Keenan, Theodore G. Kirkpatrick, and Kenneth M. Bierly, publishers also of the anti-Communist weekly Counterattack (two of the three have since resigned). Red Channels names 151 broadcasting peo- ple as having lent themselves-knowingly or unknowingly-to Communist fronts and causes, and lists their alleged affiliations. This is not the only listing of its kind, but it is the one that has received the most publicity and attracted the most attention, and it has been made the basis, people say, for a general blacklist in the industry against the people named, with the result that prominent actors, directors, writers, and even producers named in it have lost jobs, some have been utterly ruined, and others are in virtual hiding-or so it is alleged.
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