![]() ![]() We’re talking just a few days after Rush Limbaugh died. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday. Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s burst of policymaking. If you wanted to build an alternative reality machine, Matzko argues, it’s hard to beat modern talk radio.Ī lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. I reached out to Matzko just a few days after Limbaugh’s death to talk about the roots of today’s right-wing echo chamber and why he thinks the real power of radio is the illusion of intimacy it creates between the host and the audience. ![]() And despite the sagging numbers, the rise of podcasting is basically an extension of the radio format, which means it isn’t going away. It’s also a look at the psychology of right-wing radio and why it’s so good at pulling listeners down rabbit holes of conspiracy theorizing. It’s a fascinating history of right-wing radio in the US, from its rise in the 1950s through the Vietnam Era and into the age of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. For better or worse, talk radio does as much to shape the reality of millions of Americans as any other medium in the country.Ī recent book by Paul Matzko, called The Radio Right, tries to answer this question and a whole lot more. Although the industry has been ailing over the last several years, tens of millions of Americans still listen to it each week (a precise number is hard to come by, but it’s massive) and many of them are listening to a lot of it. It’s hard to appreciate the reach of talk radio if, like me, you don’t listen to it and don’t know anyone who does. ![]() Conservatives have dominated the medium of radio for well over half a century, and while you might think of radio as a relic of the electric age, it remains a powerful force in American politics. If that sounds surprising to you, it shouldn’t. Glance at a list of the top 15 talk radio programs in the country and you’ll notice something immediately: All but a couple are conservative. Whatever you think of Limbaugh, he was the face of modern right-wing radio and his success coincided with a conservative takeover of an important but largely invisible force in American politics. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh died last week. ![]()
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