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1968: Soul Music and the Year of Black Power

The summer's hit songs offered a glimpse into the changing views of Black America.

Canon Fodder

Where's the country music on Pitchfork's Best Albums of the 1980s?

My Dad and Henry Ford

My father was pro-Jewish propaganda when the country had an anti-semitism problem - he even met the man that inspired much of the hate. But is history repeating itself?
Man reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette in a mid-twentieth century kitchen.

Why the “Golden Age” of Newspapers Was the Exception, Not the Rule

"American journalism is younger than American baseball."

It Didn’t Start with Facebook: Surveillance and the Commercial Media

The era of audience exploitation began in earnest thanks in large part to the experiments of Dr. Frank Stanton in the 1930s.
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Thank Sean Hannity for the Trump Presidency

The conservative media made this president, and the conservative media will keep him in office.
Funeral flower arrangement with a ribbon reading "R.I.P. Internet."
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Why Ajit Pai is Wrong About Net Neutrality

FCC regulations have long promoted innovation that benefits consumers, not stifled it.

Cold War Propaganda: The Truth Belonged to No One Country

During the Cold War, US propagandists worked to provide a counterweight to Communist media, but truth eluded them all.

How to Measure Ghosts: Arthur C. Nielsen and the Invention of Big Data

How audience measurement became central to the creative and commercial development of television.

How Country Music Went Conservative

Country music is assumed to be the soundtrack of the Republican Party. But it wasn't always that way.

The Oral History of Lilith Fair, As Told By the Women Who Lived It

It was a time when promoters were telling women in music: “You can’t put two women on the same bill. People won’t come.”

How Watching Congressional Hearings Became an American Pastime

Decades before Watergate, mobsters helped turn hearings into must-see television.

Sgt. Pepper Came Out 50 Years Ago This Week. The Timing Was As Perfect As the Album.

The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper at the exact moment that the world was ready to take a rock album seriously as art.

FDR's War Against the Press

Franklin Roosevelt had his own Breitbart, and radio was his Twitter.
Pearl Jam on stage.

The Story of Pearl Jam, from a Seattle Basement to The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

A look at the first year of the band originally known as Mookie Blaylock.

How Televising Presidential Debates Changed Everything

Ever since Kennedy-Nixon, televised debates have given viewers an insight into candidates' policies—and their personalities, too.
Graphic illustration of people standing in a line with text boxes over their heads

Internet Privacy, Funded By Spies

Spies, counterinsurgency campaigns, hippie entrepreneurs, privacy apps funded by the CIA.
Orson Welles

A Hundred Years of Orson Welles

He was said to have gone into decline, but his story is one of endurance—even of unlikely triumph.
Black-and-white portrait of Fidel Castro looking down with his hand near his ear.

I Was With Fidel Castro When JFK Was Assassinated

A first-person account of Fidel Castro during a monumental moment in history.
Aimee Semple McPherson in front of her Gospel Car, painted with the words "Jesus is coming soon - get ready."

The “Lady Preacher” Who Became World-Famous—and Then Vanished

Aimee Semple McPherson took to the radio to spread the Gospel, but her mysterious disappearance cast a shadow on her reputation.
President Roosevelt signs the proclamation naming December 15 as Bill of Rights Day.

The Reinvention of the Bill of Rights

The New Deal-era creation of “Bill of Rights Day” obscures the real nature and guardrails of American liberty.
"I Baptize Thee," 1940 oil on burlap painting of a baptism.

How Memphis Gave Gospel the Holy Ghost

On the evening of October 7, 1952, gospel promoters booked the Spirit of Memphis for a concert in Memphis’s Mason Temple.

How Jukeboxes Made Memphis Music

When R.E. Buster Williams ruled jukeboxes and jukeboxes ruled music.
Collage of different Indigenous people from the present day.
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Native Narratives: The Representation of Native Americans in Public Broadcasting

A selection of radio and television programs that reinforce or reject stereotypes, and Native-created media that responds to those depictions.
"REM" musicians pose in front of a mirror.

How R.E.M. Created Alternative Music

In the cultural wasteland of the Reagan era, they showed that a band could have mass appeal without being cheesy, or nostalgic, or playing hair metal.
Gold Dust on the Air: Television Anthology Drama and Midcentury American Culture by Molly A. Schneider. University of Texas Press. 238 pages.

The Myth America Show

The anthology drama provided a venue for discourses on American national identity during the massive cultural, economic, and political changes occurring at midcentury.
Anti-KKK demonstrators at the 1924 Democratic National Conventions.

The Craziest Convention in American History

Think this year’s Democratic convention is going to be nuts? One hundred years ago, Democrats took 103 ballots—and more than two weeks—to choose a candidate.
1924 Democratic convention at Madison Square Garden.

Why the 1924 Democratic National Convention Was the Longest and Most Chaotic of Its Kind

A century ago, the party took a record 103 ballots and 16 days of intense, violent debate to choose a presidential nominee.
Eden Ahbez.

The Strangest Hit Songwriter in History

He wrote one of my favorite songs, but was so much more than a composer.
Motown Records advertisement for the Dynamic Superiors.

Trapped in Motown’s Closet

The intersection of Black music and queer identity.

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