0:00

Hi, everyone. It's me Katia, Executive

0:02

Producer of On the Media. Today,

0:04

and for the next five weeks, we have an extra

0:06

podcast, extra in the feed for you. It's

0:09

a brand new reported series we're

0:11

calling the divided dial. It

0:13

touches on the things you, OTM

0:15

listener, are drawn to, namely,

0:18

getting a deeper, more nuanced understanding

0:20

about the intersection of media and politics.

0:23

And it's about radio too. Thanks

0:25

for listening.

0:28

Thursday, monthly. and

0:36

the Lord restores and refreshes you.

0:39

You will be able to provide for others

0:41

as the Lord provides for A

0:46

few

0:46

weeks after the twenty twenty

0:48

election, radio host Eric

0:50

Mataxes had one of his frequent

0:52

guests back on the air.

0:53

Colonel Doug Mastriano.

0:56

This man is an American

0:59

hero.

0:59

Doug Mastriano, fresh Pennsylvania

1:02

state senator and recently defeated twenty

1:04

twenty two Republican nominee for governor

1:07

was at the vanguard, promoting allegations

1:09

of widespread fraud right after the

1:11

twenty twenty election. And

1:14

so was conservative Christian

1:16

talk show host Eric Mataxes. So

1:18

this was familiar affair to his listener.

1:21

kill battle. What happens if these

1:23

people don't join you in this? You

1:26

you could kiss fair and free elections goodbye.

1:28

Mastiano

1:30

had a plan to get the

1:32

state's general assembly to intervene in

1:34

the election results. It was

1:36

a legal long shot or more

1:38

accurately and impossibility, even

1:41

the plan's creator, Trump lawyer John

1:43

Eastman, said it wouldn't hold up in

1:45

court. But Matexus and

1:47

Mastrianne begged listeners to

1:49

get their senators on board.

1:51

I just wanna say to my

1:53

audience, if you live in

1:55

Pennsylvania and you don't do this, when

1:58

things go to hell, which they will,

2:00

I want you to know you're

2:02

responsible. But

2:07

right before this interview with Mostriano,

2:09

something unexpected happened, something

2:12

that Mataxes called,

2:14

divine intervention.

2:17

Mastiano got a call. Hey,

2:19

sir. I'm here with Eric Mataxes. He wants

2:22

to know if you want any message to go out on this show

2:24

today. from William Duck president

2:25

Donald Trump seeing how

2:27

the attempt to change the Pennsylvania election

2:29

results was going. And Trump

2:31

was happy to get on speaker phone with

2:33

Mattax.

2:34

Can you hear me, Eric? Yes. I

2:36

can hear the president. Mister president, I

2:38

wanna know what can I

2:40

do. your

2:42

your your whole show and your whole

2:44

deal is great.

2:46

So to keep it up, we're making a lot

2:48

of progress.

2:48

the

2:53

With a cleanly parted shock of

2:55

salt and pepper hair, sports coats

2:57

over buttoned down shirts and bookish round

2:59

glasses. Mattaxes' styles

3:02

suggest more Manhattan Dandy

3:04

than would be crew safer. But

3:06

when it came to defending Trump's seat

3:08

against the supposedly stolen election.

3:10

MatXis was ready

3:13

for battle. I'd be happy

3:15

to die in this fight. This is a fight for

3:17

everything God is with us. Thank

3:19

you, mister president. God bless you.

3:21

Yep. It's a stolen election, but

3:23

we're not gonna we're just not gonna No.

3:26

We're not.

3:27

A fight for everything with

3:29

God on our side.

3:31

A fight worth dying for.

3:34

It's a sentiment that money on the right became

3:36

convinced of that some

3:39

took to the US capital. On January

3:41

sixth, twenty twenty one.

3:49

Spoiler alert,

3:52

Mataxes

3:52

did not die in this fight,

3:54

but he fired off many of the lies

3:56

that fueled the attack.

3:57

Mataxes is not

3:59

a fire

3:59

breathing talk show host on some

4:02

friend's local radio station. In

4:04

fact, there's a very good chance that his voice

4:06

floats into your home on invisible

4:08

radio waves ever every day. Just

4:11

waiting for you to press a button, turn

4:13

a dial, and tune him in. His

4:16

show is beamed from the heart of New

4:18

York City out of a corner office

4:20

radio studio in the Empire State

4:22

Building to cities and towns

4:24

across the United States. One

4:26

estimate puts his audience at eight

4:28

million listeners

4:29

each week,

4:30

way more than many of the most popular NPR

4:33

shows, and enough to sell out

4:35

Madison Square Garden almost fifty

4:37

times over every single

4:40

night.

4:45

This is the divided dial,

4:47

a

4:48

five part podcast series from on the

4:50

media about how one side

4:52

of the political spectrum came

4:54

to dominate talk

4:55

radio and how

4:56

one company is using the airwaves to

4:59

launch a right wing media empire. I'm

5:02

Katie Thornton, and I've worked and volunteered

5:04

in radio since I was a teenager. Doing

5:06

everything from hosting music shows,

5:08

to legal and operational support, to

5:11

selling ads, I love radio.

5:13

In an aerosol driven by distant

5:16

virtual connection, it's a medium

5:18

that's so intimate and immediate

5:20

and so inherently local, delivering

5:23

information that's relevant to my

5:25

community. at

5:26

least in theory. But

5:28

flip around through the AM and FM dial

5:30

and you notice that radio writ large

5:32

is pretty homogenous, and

5:35

that's especially true on

5:37

talk radio, where

5:38

one political and religious perspective

5:41

rains. The COVID pandemic,

5:43

this has been the biggest global

5:46

dry run to prepare the world

5:48

to receive the mark of the beast in

5:50

the seven year tribulation in the history

5:52

of mankind. The vast majority at this point of

5:54

gender confusion is being driven by societal

5:56

naming. Ring of profiling is good for your

5:58

help. It could save your life.

5:59

I know a lot of people, oh, my god. This is braces.

6:02

No. No. It's not. No. It's not. Drill build

6:04

the Keystone pipeline, deport illegals,

6:07

build the wall. I don't wanna hear about the

6:09

EPA or the Department of Energy. I don't wanna hear

6:11

about Biden's overreach. defy

6:13

the federal government. I

6:16

wanted to know how we got to this divided

6:19

dial. How rhetoric like meta

6:21

accesses, far right conspiracies,

6:23

and incitement to violence, has found

6:25

a comfortable home on the public

6:27

airwaves. And how many

6:29

talkers who have been deplatformed on

6:31

social media still have a haven

6:33

on the radio dial. As

6:35

it turns out, radio is still

6:37

really influential and a crucial

6:40

component of the American far right

6:42

movement. and getting here

6:44

didn't happen by accident.

6:47

But let

6:49

me finish telling you about Eric Montaxes.

6:52

Welcome Eric Matatchers.

6:54

To a lot of people who knew him a decade

6:56

ago, his current role as spokesperson for

6:58

election fraud conspiracies and

7:00

an evangelist for a politicized god

7:03

who would support going to battle for

7:05

Donald Trump came as a surprise.

7:07

That is idolatry. Thank you very

7:09

much. Thank you. If you don't know what

7:11

idolatry is, you're probably not saved down.

7:13

Ten years ago, my tax was known as an

7:15

up and coming evangelical public

7:17

intellectual type. He wrote a book

7:19

about Martin Luther and one about

7:21

German anti Nazi pastor, Dietrich

7:24

Bonhoeffer. He hosted a Manhattan

7:26

lecture series called Socrates in the

7:28

city, where he interviewed people like Malcolm

7:30

Gladwell about faith and public

7:32

life. Before all this, he

7:34

was a writer on Veggie Tales.

7:36

Have we got a show for you?

7:39

The evangelical kids' show featuring

7:41

talking vegetables and life

7:43

lessons. We know that god's

7:45

word is for everyone. Now

7:48

that all of them will take good.

7:50

Hey. That's Mataxes was

7:52

even a featured speaker at president Barack

7:54

Obama's prayer breakfast in twenty

7:56

twelve. On the son of European immigrants,

7:58

who met in an English

7:59

class in New York City. My

8:02

mom is German, hence my deep

8:04

love for Sigfried and

8:06

Roy. Two years

8:07

later, he came out with one of the Wall Street

8:09

journals most engaged with articles

8:11

ever called science increasingly

8:14

makes the case for God. And

8:16

when businessman and reality TV

8:18

star, Donald Trump entered the presidential

8:20

race halfway through twenty fifteen, Mataxes

8:23

poked fun at Trump's plea for Christian votes.

8:25

He wrote satirical tweets mocking

8:28

Trump's lack of understanding of Christianity,

8:30

calling it hashtag Trump bible.

8:32

Things like, therefore, a man

8:35

shall leave his father and mother and

8:37

cleave to his wife for

8:39

a season. and

8:41

Jesus went out into the desert,

8:43

but he should have invested in hotels

8:45

there. I mean, I'm killing it

8:47

in Vegas. Trump

8:49

bible was featured twice in the New

8:51

Yorker. But

8:52

as the twenty sixteen election season

8:55

boron, Mataxes changed

8:57

his tune And it all started

8:59

not long after he was recruited to have

9:01

a radio show by this

9:03

guy.

9:03

How

9:06

about this? Hey, look. I'm a

9:08

program director. What do I know about microphones?

9:10

This is Phil Boyse, a top

9:12

radio programming veteran. speaking

9:14

here in twenty eighteen to a group of

9:16

industry professionals. So we're gonna talk a

9:18

little bit about what's going on in

9:20

talk radio.

9:21

and how the news talk format

9:24

continues to make a difference in America. Notice

9:26

I resisted the urge to say make

9:28

America great again. but I did come

9:30

up with kind of a cool sexy,

9:32

secondary title. How to

9:33

take advantage of the biggest boom to talk

9:35

radio to come along since Monica Lewinsky

9:38

wore a blue dress. Boyce was

9:40

talking about, you guessed it,

9:42

Donald Trump. We call him the gift that

9:44

keeps on giving. This guy

9:46

right here is a game changer for

9:48

our format. and you can take

9:50

advantage of this every single day.

9:52

Boyce spent fourteen years programming

9:55

WABC,

9:55

one of the most listened to talk

9:58

radio station in the country.

9:59

He discovered Sean Hannity and put him

10:02

on the air,

10:02

so he knew how to

10:03

turn a profit from infective.

10:06

I'm sitting there in November of

10:08

two thousand sixteen thinking

10:10

it's all over for me. I

10:12

really thought Hillary was gonna win. How many of

10:14

you thought Hillary gonna win. Oh, I'll be honest.

10:16

Okay. And if she had, I was

10:18

fearful it was gonna be damaging to our

10:20

format. She might try to her talk radio

10:23

knowing her Well, guess what? Two

10:25

thousand seventeen was a great

10:27

year because of Donald

10:29

Trump winning that election. That

10:31

year, Voice smashed the revenue record

10:33

for the network he helps run.

10:35

This is

10:35

America first on the sale of radio network

10:38

broadcasting across the nation from just outside

10:40

the n Salubrious swell that is

10:42

Washington, the Salem Radio Network

10:44

probably presents our newest,

10:46

nationally syndicated program. The Salem

10:48

Radio Network. Live. from the

10:50

Salem Radio Network Studios in Washington

10:52

DC to officially kick off the second

10:54

minute march.

10:56

Salem Radio Network is part of

10:58

the larger Salem Media Group,

11:00

and Salem just may be

11:02

the most influential media entity

11:04

you've never heard of.

11:06

named after a biblical

11:08

title for Jerusalem, Salem

11:10

is the country's largest conservative

11:13

Christian multimedia company.

11:15

Phil Boys has overseen all national talk

11:17

programming there since twenty

11:19

fifteen. In their public

11:21

filings, they write that they are, quote,

11:23

fundamentally committed

11:25

to programming and content, emphasizing

11:28

Christian values, family

11:30

themes, and conservative news. And

11:33

that their commitment to these

11:35

values means that we may

11:37

choose not to switch to other formats

11:39

or pursue potentially more

11:41

profitable business opportunities in

11:43

response to changes in audience

11:45

preferences. In

11:48

other words, Christianity and conservatism,

11:51

twenty 473

11:53

sixty five.

11:58

From my home in Minneapolis, I can tune

12:00

into four different Salem stations.

12:03

Philadelphia's and New Yorkers, you

12:05

have two apiece. Portland, Oregon

12:07

has six. Little Rock,

12:09

Sacramento, Atlanta, four

12:11

each, five in Dallas, and that's

12:13

only a fraction of Salem

12:15

stations. They have

12:17

conservative talk stations.

12:18

On Philadelphia's AM at

12:20

nine ninety, the answer,

12:21

Atlantis, home for conservative

12:24

talk. Right

12:24

here on twelve eighty, the Patriot, intelligent

12:27

radio. They have Christian talkstations. AM

12:30

nine eighty emissions.

12:31

The Twin Cities Christian. EDR

12:33

ninety eight point three FM, the

12:35

word. You are on the men's

12:37

show.

12:37

And Christian music station. 104

12:41

point

12:41

seven the fish.

12:46

In

12:49

addition to the stations they own,

12:52

Salem syndicates their talk shows on

12:54

over three thousand other stations.

12:56

In some cases, they give their shows away

12:58

in exchange for nothing other than advertising

13:01

time. So Salem hosts can be heard on

13:03

stations across the country.

13:05

One of the

13:06

first things Phil Boisted in his

13:08

new role at Salem was

13:09

to bring in up and coming

13:11

evangelical celebrity Erica Mataxes.

13:14

Mattaxes,

13:14

who'd never worked as a radio host

13:16

before, was eager. But

13:18

not long after boys hired

13:20

him, there was a shake down on the

13:22

company's airwaves.

13:23

Conservative

13:25

commentator, Alicia Krause, was

13:27

the first

13:27

to go. He is the former

13:30

Sean Hannity for

13:31

user and also the co

13:33

host of the answer. She co

13:35

hosted the morning show on Salem's

13:37

Los Angeles, a blessed station with Ben

13:39

Shapiro, now one of the country's most

13:41

popular conservative podcasters.

13:44

Krauss, then an ant Trump

13:46

conservative said staff

13:48

pressured her to cover Trump more

13:50

favorably during the twenty sixteen election.

13:52

She didn't, and she said she

13:54

felt she was fired because of

13:56

it. The company said it was because she

13:58

didn't have great chemistry with one

13:59

of her cohosts who was a

14:02

very rare liberal voice on the station.

14:04

but who was also eventually let go.

14:06

Back in twenty sixteen, their

14:08

other cohost, Ben Shapiro, didn't

14:10

support

14:10

Trump either. he

14:12

sent Phil Boy's an email asking how to

14:14

cover the candidate, Boyse responded with

14:16

a message saying Salem didn't

14:19

have an official position. but

14:21

that the CEO of the company had

14:23

argued that beating Hillary would

14:25

mean supporting Trump. Voice

14:28

wrote, I suggest that you

14:31

become a trial lawyer. You

14:33

suspect your client is guilty, but

14:35

you are paid to get him

14:37

off. Shapero

14:38

left of his own accord, and the

14:40

weeding out continued into twenty

14:43

eighteen. Here's Phil Boys at

14:45

that conference

14:45

again. I've got a host right now

14:47

and coaching him out of bad habits. He

14:50

understood that Trump is

14:52

good for our audience, but there are some days he

14:54

just can't bring himself to say good stuff.

14:55

A few years earlier, former Republican

14:58

congressman and Salem host Joe Walsh

15:00

had suggested that President Obama

15:02

and BOM activists were to blame for a

15:04

lone gunman's murder of five

15:06

police officers. His tweet

15:08

read, this is now war. Watch out

15:10

Obama. Watch out Black Lives

15:12

Matter Punks. Real America.

15:14

is coming after you, but

15:16

he was

15:17

fickle on Trump. And I said, what

15:19

are you doing? Your listeners rely

15:21

on us We are the

15:23

antidote to the mainstream media. If you align

15:25

yourself with them, you'll

15:27

eventually lose. Salem

15:29

pulled the plug on Walsh's show

15:31

shortly after. Though they said it wasn't because

15:33

of his stance on Trump. That

15:36

same year, host Michael Medved

15:38

also an anti Trump conservative

15:40

and who had been with Salem for more

15:42

than twenty years was let go

15:44

too. Salem said it wasn't because of

15:46

his politics, but a lot of

15:48

company staff who were fired around this

15:50

time went on the record saying there was a

15:52

purge of anti Trumpers at

15:54

Salem. Eric Mataxes,

15:57

though, was safe. Despite

15:58

his earlier

15:59

wavering, by twenty sixteen, he was

16:02

committed to the Salem Company line.

16:04

even writing an op

16:05

ed for the Wall Street Journal, arguing

16:07

that Christians needed to throw their support

16:09

behind Donald Trump. If you care about

16:11

America, you eat sometimes have

16:13

to hold your nose and vote for the person who's gonna

16:15

do the least damage or who's gonna maybe

16:17

pull you back from the brink. I'm

16:19

genuinely convinced that

16:21

that is means voting

16:23

for Trump. It doesn't mean that I think.

16:25

MatXis was an early recruit to

16:27

fill voices' new national radio

16:30

team. but there were more

16:31

to come.

16:32

After the break, we need the lineup.

16:42

This is the divider dial. I'm

16:44

Katie Thornton, and I was about to

16:46

introduce you to the lineup.

16:49

The number is 83333

16:52

gorka, but don't call us on a cell phone that's connected

16:54

to one of the big cell phone providers because

16:56

they are utter woke, and

16:58

they hate you. They Sebastian

17:00

Borka, hosts since twenty nineteen.

17:02

He

17:02

was an anti terrorism adviser to

17:04

president Trump, but failed to

17:06

get the necessary clearance to actually work on

17:09

national security issues. He's been shown

17:11

to have ties to a Hungarian far

17:13

right neo Nazi group that's on a

17:15

US Department of State Watch list.

17:17

And there's Charlie

17:20

Kirk. Let's talk about this war on white people.

17:22

That's a thought crime done. Yes. You're not allowed to

17:24

sit here. Yeah. You're obviously

17:26

welcome to say it here. We agree.

17:28

Kirk runs the ultra conservative anti

17:30

Higher Ed youth organization turning

17:32

Point USA. Boys brought him on

17:34

in mid twenty twenty. Along with long

17:37

standing Salem host, Dennis

17:39

Prager, Hugh Hewitt and Mike

17:41

Gallagher, These new voices make up the core of Salem's

17:44

national talent, a sort of b

17:46

list of right wing celebrities, who

17:48

don't get reported on the same way your Alex Jones's

17:51

or your Tucker Carlson's due.

17:53

And by the time the

17:55

twenty twenty election season came around,

17:58

listeners across the country heard a unified

18:00

message from Donald

18:02

Trump and Salem talkers alike.

18:04

This is

18:04

going to be a fraud like you've

18:07

never seen. all run by Democrats. It's president Trump

18:09

to rate the election. If we lose

18:11

if the president

18:12

loses, they will come for us

18:14

all. They will come for your children, they will come

18:16

for your schools, they will come in every

18:18

fashion, and they

18:19

won't

18:20

stop. And on

18:21

January fourth, twenty twenty one,

18:24

Salem host Charlie Kirk used his

18:26

radio show to lay out a road

18:28

map to a second Trump term.

18:30

Believe

18:30

it or not, There

18:32

is a almost guaranteed way

18:34

that Donald Trump serves for more years.

18:36

Mike Pence says, based on

18:38

the power and the authority granted to me

18:40

as president of the United States senate

18:43

and my oath to the constitution of the United

18:45

States. I refuse To

18:47

certify at this very moment, the election

18:50

results of Arizona, Nevada,

18:52

Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and

18:55

Michigan. This is not

18:57

true, but it was an idea that was making

18:59

the rounds in right wing circles.

19:01

Two

19:01

days later, that's exactly what

19:04

crowds on the steps of the capital we're calling for,

19:07

complete with a hangman's noose

19:09

and chance to string up the

19:11

vice

19:11

president.

19:14

elect our representatives

19:16

and our senators have had

19:18

enough and they are in their house.

19:20

Should I feel guilty for feeling

19:22

good? As protests

19:23

poured into the rotunda,

19:25

Salem host Sebastian Borka

19:28

celebrated live on the

19:30

air.

19:30

As we saw they tested just a

19:32

moment ago on television site to the shock

19:34

and the shagiran of Fox

19:37

News. That's our house.

19:40

It's not the senators. It's

19:42

not Nancy Pelosi's. It's

19:44

not Chuck Schumer's. God

19:46

willing he will continue to be peaceful,

19:48

but a message has been said that I

19:50

didn't know the truth. It's hard

19:52

to remember now, but right after January

19:54

sixth, there was a brief moment

19:56

of almost unity. Even

19:58

many in the broader right wing media

20:01

ecosystem, like host on

20:03

Fox News, said that maybe the

20:05

falsehoods about the election had

20:07

gone too far. I want to be

20:09

clear, the actions that the

20:11

United States states capital three days ago, words of

20:13

plural, reprehensible, outright

20:16

criminal. And I don't care whether

20:18

those who didn't think the

20:20

election was stolen. Though no one

20:22

from the company confirmed it, there were

20:24

reports that Cumulus, one of the

20:26

biggest radio chains in the country, with

20:28

tons of conservative talkers

20:30

sent a memo to their hosts.

20:32

It said the election is over.

20:34

If you suggest otherwise, you can

20:36

expect to be fired. People

20:39

in

20:39

the radio world speculated that

20:42

Cumulus was worried about losing

20:44

advertisers. Because in

20:46

commercial radio, a threat of an Adboycott

20:47

looms large, but

20:50

Salem is different. Nearly

20:52

half of their radio income

20:54

comes from paid pro ramping,

20:56

mostly conservative Christian ministries that

20:58

run on their Christian talkstations, and

21:00

the overwhelming majority of

21:02

those programs, more than ninety

21:05

five percent come back year after year

21:07

even as prices go up. So

21:09

Salem doesn't have to be so

21:11

concerned with placating advertiser

21:13

At Salem,

21:15

there was no January sixth

21:17

memo. The lies about the stolen election

21:20

continued. And soon, the rest of the right

21:22

wing media ecosystem caught up

21:24

with Salem followed closely

21:26

by a large contingent of the Republican

21:28

Party. This midterm

21:30

season well over half of all Americans

21:32

had a twenty twenty election denier on

21:35

their ballot. And while they

21:37

didn't all perform as well as many on the

21:39

right hoped, their influence is not going away.

21:41

At least a hundred seventy of those

21:43

candidates were elected to state and

21:46

national offices. some of

21:48

those winners will be in charge of

21:50

future elections. Throughout

21:52

their campaigns, some of those candidates

21:54

had cited a key piece of

21:57

Evidence for

21:57

their claims about the stolen election. Evidence

22:00

brought

22:00

to the public

22:02

by

22:02

Salem Media. We must

22:04

now face the chilling reality.

22:06

The Democrats conceived the

22:08

highest. They funded it. They organized

22:10

it. Then they

22:12

carried it out. In May of

22:14

this year, Salem released a

22:16

film hosted by far right activist, Dinesh

22:19

D'Souza. They rigged and stole the twenty

22:22

twenty presidential election. We

22:24

cannot be okay with this. We

22:26

cannot simply move on.

22:28

You remember D'SOUZA? He

22:30

was

22:30

convicted of felony campaign finance

22:33

fraud. for making campaign contributions

22:35

in other people's names, but was

22:37

pardoned by Trump. The

22:39

film, two thousand mules, claims

22:41

to prove election fraud in

22:43

twenty twenty. It relies on cell

22:45

phone geo tracking data that they

22:47

say identifies over two thousand people

22:50

in five key states who

22:52

made multiple trips to unnamed non

22:54

profits, which were, quote, stash

22:57

houses for fraudulent ballots.

22:59

Then allegedly, those mules

23:01

went to drop boxes. What you

23:02

are seeing is a crime.

23:05

These are fraudulent votes

23:08

in two

23:08

The movie is rife with shortcomings and

23:10

outright falsehoods. For one,

23:12

they repeatedly say that they have video footage

23:14

of the same individuals

23:17

going to multiple drop boxes to drop

23:19

off fistfuls of

23:20

ballots. This particular individual,

23:23

we have in a

23:25

number of different locations. In a number of

23:27

different times, he's actually a mule.

23:28

But they never show

23:31

it.

23:31

Tech experts have said that phone's

23:33

geo tracking is just not

23:34

precise enough to tell if someone went up to

23:36

a drop box or just walked by one.

23:39

And they are in highly

23:41

trafficked areas.

23:41

area

23:42

State bureaus of investigation actually did

23:45

look into some of the cases the film

23:47

showed and they found

23:49

no wrongdoing.

23:49

right

23:50

Regardless, the film was a hit.

23:53

Trump himself held an early screening

23:55

at Mar a Lago, where the likes

23:57

of Mar Jerry Taylor Green, Rudy Giuliani,

23:59

and Kenosha Wisconsin shooter

24:01

Kyle Rittenhouse all came to

24:03

watch. Two thousand Mules has

24:05

a one hundred per cent

24:07

audience score on rotten tomatoes. In

24:09

a moment when election fraud conspiracies

24:11

had finally broken through to the national

24:13

stage, two thousand mules gave

24:16

opposed evidence and it

24:18

applauded those who stood behind the

24:20

lie.

24:20

And therefore does it follow

24:22

that the people who suspect

24:24

good fraud. Even though they didn't have

24:26

the proof, their suspicion was

24:29

right.

24:29

Absolutely. Their instincts are right.

24:32

According

24:33

to Salem, the film grossed ten

24:35

million dollars in under two weeks.

24:37

Nearly two months after

24:40

it came out when I made

24:42

an account with Truth Social Trump's alternative to

24:44

Twitter, Dinesh DeSouso was

24:46

second only to Trump in my list

24:48

of recommended accounts to

24:50

follow. Last year,

24:52

Salem launched their own podcast

24:54

network and the Dinesh D'Souza

24:56

podcast was their debut feature.

24:59

They've added over a dozen daily

25:01

conservative of podcasts since then,

25:03

often featuring young hosts who vie for

25:05

a new generation of listeners. And

25:07

now, every Salem Radio host has

25:09

a Salem Podcast too. Those

25:12

radio hosts can also be found

25:14

as talking heads on the company's new

25:16

twenty four seven Internet television

25:18

con station, Salem News Channel, which they launched

25:20

this summer. Salem also

25:22

has their own movies streaming service

25:24

and production house, a rapidly

25:27

growing conservator of Christian Influencer

25:29

Network, a series of Christian

25:31

websites like christianity dot

25:33

com and God Tube

25:36

and a long running conservative

25:38

publishing house called Regnery.

25:40

They even run a service that sells sermons

25:43

to pastors. And for over a

25:45

decade, they've been quietly purchasing

25:47

some of the biggest conservative news

25:50

sites, town hall,

25:51

hot air, and

25:52

a red state. But

25:55

for all of Salem's varied media

25:57

strategies, broadcast radio

25:59

is still

25:59

central to their operations. According

26:02

to Nielsen, broadcast has a higher

26:04

reach than television. Pew

26:07

research says it's nearly neck and neck with

26:09

social media for how Americans get

26:11

their news. Surveys repeatedly

26:13

show that Americans trust

26:15

radio over any other medium.

26:17

And that's why

26:18

we'll be focusing our investigation

26:21

in the of podcast series

26:23

on the airwaves.

26:25

Radio is a

26:28

sort of perfect medium for the spread of

26:30

misinformation. This is Nicole

26:32

Hammer. She's a historian and scholar

26:34

of conservative media. we're

26:36

going to be hearing a lot from her throughout

26:38

this series. You have to listen to it

26:40

live in order to capture what's

26:42

being said, and that gives a

26:45

lot more freedom to people who

26:47

are on radio to

26:49

say things that

26:50

aren't true. Remember, with social

26:52

media, anything you say can and will

26:54

be used against you. Salem VP,

26:57

Phil Boyse. It's almost better to

26:59

say it on the air than to post it in a

27:01

tweet because you post it in a tweet. It's out

27:03

there for the end of time. stayed on

27:05

the air, maybe they didn't hear

27:06

it.

27:06

A single talk radio host goes

27:09

on the air for hours every

27:11

day. That's a lot harder to call

27:13

through than two hundred eighty character

27:16

tweets. Radio is hard to

27:18

parse, hard to hard to share

27:20

and not particularly glamorous

27:22

to report on. It's seen as

27:24

the cast aside no big deal

27:26

medium only as FlyOver's in Middle

27:28

America have to contend with. So

27:31

not only is it largely unseen and

27:33

under studied, but it's not

27:35

taken seriously even though it has

27:37

very serious consequences for culture

27:39

and politics in the United States. And so

27:41

it just operates Out of

27:44

sight, nobody pays any attention and it

27:46

has so much power.

27:50

Next time

27:54

on the divided dial.

27:57

We dive in to Salem's

27:58

history and find

27:59

out that the company has deep

28:02

ties to the Republican Party.

28:04

And thanks to their involvement with

28:06

a secretive group evangelical and

28:08

conservative leaders, they are tightly

28:10

networked with right wing political

28:12

strategists, pollsters, and big

28:14

donors.

28:15

it began when these

28:18

brothers in law acquired a radio station

28:20

in Bakersfield, California. I was

28:21

looking at major campaign donors.

28:24

For George Bush, I kept seeing

28:26

Salem Communications. Anybody

28:29

who mocks the crucifixion will

28:32

burn in hell. many

28:34

of our Christians have

28:36

what I call the kugaru syndrome.

28:38

Good government. They want everybody

28:40

to vote. I don't want everybody

28:42

to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage

28:44

in the elections like candidate goes up,

28:46

as the voting populist goes

28:49

down. The

28:52

divided dial is written

28:54

and reported by me, Katie Norton,

28:56

and edited by Cassie Rogers. We had

28:58

help from Max Baldwin and Tom Culligan.

29:00

Music and sound design is by Jared Paul, Jennifer Munson

29:02

is our technical director. This

29:04

series is a production of on the media

29:06

and WNC Studios with

29:09

support from the fund for investigative journalism.

29:12

Listen to the upcoming episodes of the series

29:14

wherever you get your podcasts and follow

29:16

my work on Instagram at its Katy

29:18

Thornton. Thanks for

29:20

listening. One

29:27

zero.