Hi r/AskHistorians! My name is A.J. Bauer and I'm an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama.\) You may know me from Twitter or Bluesky, or from my occasional columns in outlets like Bloomberg Opinion, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Politico, and Time magazine. I'm editor, along with Anthony Nadler, of the book News on the Right: Studying Conservative News Cultures (Oxford, 2019). And I'm author of the new book Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press, published by Columbia University Press in March. Here's a little bit about the book!
- Conservatives have disagreed about many things, but they have long been united by the belief that the mainstream—or “liberal”—media is biased against them. Why did conflict with the press become so central to conservative identity, and how has antipathy toward the media shaped the modern conservative movement? I trace how decades of right-wing criticism of the “liberal media” reshaped US news culture and came to define conservative politics.
- In the 1940s, progressives saw the newspaper industry as a reactionary bastion and supported regulations such as the Fairness Doctrine to ensure a wider range of viewpoints over the airwaves. Anticommunist campaigners soon borrowed tactics from their foes, adapting claims of structural media bias and fostering skepticism toward mainstream outlets. I track the conservative turn to media activism, demonstrating how allegations of bias bridged the gap between relatively mainstream figures such as William F. Buckley and more extreme groups like the John Birch Society. I consider key moments from Texas oilman H. L. Hunt’s bankrolling of the supposedly nonpartisan Facts Forum in the 1950s to Spiro Agnew’s tirades against the media elite and the rise of watchdog groups such as Accuracy in Media in the 1970s. By cultivating grassroots hostility toward the press, conservatives built an audience base for the right-wing media sector that emerged after the Reagan administration lifted the Fairness Doctrine. From Rush Limbaugh to Fox News to today’s right-wing podcasts and influencers, this book shows why conservative media ultimately eclipsed the movement that enabled it. In recounting the long history of conflict between conservatives and the press, I offer a new origin story for today’s polarized media environment.
I'll be answering your questions this afternoon (CDT) — ASK ME ANYTHING!
\My public comments do not reflect those of my employer.)
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