Getting the Story Right: Reader Critiques of “The Last Days of Joe McCarthy”

Abstract

The conservative critique of mainstream media that has fed increasing levels of media distrust originated in anti-communist publications in the 1930s and was cultivated by various interests on the right over the next two decades. National Review was an influential purveyor of this critique in the late 1950s and used the publication of “The Last Days of Joe McCarthy” by political journalist Richard Rovere in 1958 to highlight it. An analysis of reader responses to Rovere’s article reveals that this conservative media critique resonated with many on the right and provides evidence that National Review had begun to establish itself among conservatives as a trustworthy alternative to the mainstream media.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers who offered invaluable feedback on this manuscript.

Notes

1 Michael Schudson, “The Fall, Rise, and Fall of Media Trust,” Columbia Journalism Review 58 , Winter 2019, https://www.cjr.org/special_report/the-fall-rise-and-fall-of-media-trust.php

2 Mark Jurkowitz, Amy Mitchell, Elisa Shearer, and Mason Walker, “U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided,” Pew Research Center, January 24, 2020, https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization-and-the-2020-election-a-nation-divided/. On trend, see Jeffrey Gottfried, Galen Stocking, Elizabeth Grieco, Mason Walker, Maya Khuzam, and Amy Mitchell, “Trusting the News Media in the Trump Era,” Pew Research Center, December 12, 2019, https://www.journalism.org/2019/12/12/trusting-the-news-media-in-the-trump-era/; Megan Brenan, “Americans Remain Distrustful of Mass Media,” Gallup, September 30, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/poll/321116/americans-remain-distrustful-mass-media.aspx.

3 Schudson, “The Fall, Rise, and Fall of Media Trust”; Christopher Cimaglio, “‘A Tiny and Closed Fraternity of Privileged Men’: The Nixon-Agnew Antimedia Campaign and the Liberal Roots of the U.S. Conservative ‘Liberal Media’ Critique,” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 1–19.

4 David Greenberg, “The Idea of ‘the Liberal Media’ and Its Roots in the Civil Rights Movement,” The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture 1, no. 2 (2008): 167–186; Matthew Pressman, On Press: The Liberal Values that Shaped the News (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018), 45–46.

5 A. J. Bauer, “Journalism History and Conservative Erasure,” American Journalism 35, no. 1 (2018): 8–10, 12–13.

6 “Facts Forum Plan” (n.d.), back cover, 19, Box 204, Folder 16, J.B. Matthews Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, cited in Bauer, “Journalism History and Conservative Erasure,” 16.

7 Bauer, “Journalism History and Conservative Erasure,” 16–18. Facts Forum functioned between 1952 and 1956.

8 Ibid., 18.

9 “Facts Forum Poll Results,” Facts Forum News, July 1954, 1.

10 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 46–48.

11 Edwin R. Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), 49–54, 115, 128–174, 216; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 68–99, 120–151, 188–196, 276–297, 316–317, 362–365, 386–410, 430, 506; Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1970), 62–65.

12 Glen Gendzel “Pride, Wrath, Glee, and Fear: Emotional Responses to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the Catholic Press, 1950–1954,” American Catholic Studies 120, no. 2 (2009): 31–32.

13 Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 132; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 288. As Rovere shared in his New Yorker column: “McCarthy also held morning press conferences to announce plans for an afternoon press conference at which he promised to reveal ‘something breathtaking.’ Whether or not he ever announced any breathtaking information was beside the point because the senator’s morning press conference generally made the afternoon headlines.” Richard H. Rovere, “Letter from Washington,” New Yorker, May 13, 1950, 99.

14 Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press, 218–219.

15 James W. Carey, “Journalism and Criticism: The Case of an Undeveloped Profession,” The Review of Politics 36, no. 2 (April 1974): 233.

16 For example, in a “National Trends” column, L. Brent Bozell reported that McCarthy planned to call for investigations of the “debacle” that was the Geneva Summit, and an article by Francis McNamara noted in passing McCarthy’s reaction to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights led by Senator Thomas Hennings; L. Brent Bozell, “National Trends,” National Review, December 7, 1955, 8; Francis J. McNamara, “Witch-Hunting with the Left,” National Review, January 11, 1956, 17.

17 David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 312–314.

18 “The Hughes Case,” Washington Post, February 4, 1956.

19 “The U.S. v. Hughes,” National Review, February 1, 1956, 4.

20 “Editorial Coverage of Hughes Case: A Partial Box Score,” National Review, February 22, 1956, 9. It is true that there was little coverage of this case in major newspapers, although the Washington Post did run several stories.

21 “A Judgment on the Hughes Case,” National Review, February 22, 1956, 7.

22 “The End of McCarthy,” National Review, May 18, 1957, 464.

23 “The Editors of National Review Believe,” National Review, November 19, 1955, 8.

24 Julie B. Lane, “Cultivating Distrust of the Mainstream Media: Propagandists for a Liberal Machine and the American Establishment,” in News on the Right: Studying Conservative News Cultures, eds. Anthony Nadler and A.J. Bauer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 157–173.

25 Mark Major, “Objective but Not Impartial: Human Events, Barry Goldwater, and the Development of the “Liberal Media” in the Conservative Counter-sphere,” New Political Science 34, no. 4 (2012), 460. The conservative newsletter Human Events, founded in 1944, also began to develop a critique of liberal media bias in the late 1950s, and it became a “consistent staple of the newsletter” by 1961.

26 Richard H. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985), 267–269; Julie B. Lane, “Richard Rovere and the American Conscience,” ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (3437048), 2010, www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/richard-rovere-american-conscience/docview/822408557/se-2?accountid=9649, 101, 113–114.

27 Richard H. Rovere, “Letter from Washington,” The New Yorker, April 22, 1950, 107.

28 Ibid.

29 Richard Rovere to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 30 March 1952, Box 12, Folder 7, Richard H. Rovere Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin (hereafter cited as Rovere Papers).

30 Richard H. Rovere, “Letter from Washington,” The New Yorker, September 18, 1954, 80.

31 Richard Rovere, “Truth Will Out – Or Will It?” Southwest Review 38, 4 (Autumn 1953), 282–284, 288.

32 Richard Rovere to Philip Horton, 17 March 1953, Box 1, Folder 5, Rovere Papers.

33 Richard H. Rovere, “Senator McCarthy’s Eggheads,” Reporter, May 11, 1954, 37–38.

34 Richard H. Rovere, “Eclipse of McCarthy” transcript, 6 November 1954, Box 10, Folder 7, Rovere Papers.

35 In early 1958, an editor with Alfred A. Knopf publishing company contacted Rovere about writing a book “that would describe and delineate the Age of McCarthy.” He told Rovere, “With your background – and the already consideration on-the-spot notes and data at your disposal, I naturally think of you as the one person for the job.” This suggestion might have contributed to Rovere’s decision to write the Esquire piece despite his weariness with the subject. Stewart Richardson to Richard Rovere, 23 January 1958, Box 2, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

36 Richard. H. Rovere, Arrivals and Departure: A Journalist’s Memoirs (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), 146.

37 Magazine journalism is a relatively overlooked area of study. David Abrahamson discusses the unique space that magazines occupy in the media landscape. “[T]he central claim of Magazine Exceptionalism,” he said, is “that magazines not only reflect or are a product of the social reality of the times, but they also serve a larger and more pro-active function – that they can also be a catalyst, shaping the very social reality of their sociocultural moment.” David Abrahamson, “Magazine Exceptionalism: The concept, the criteria, the challenge,” Journalism Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 668.

38 S.M.W. Bass and Joseph Rebello, “The Economics of the New Journalism: The Case of Esquire,” American Journalism (Winter/Spring 1992): 4–6; John J. Pauly, “The New Journalism and the Struggle for Interpretation,” Journalism 15, no. 5 (2014): 590, 599; Penn T. Kimball, “Survey: The Non-editing of Esquire,” Columbia Journalism Review (Fall 1964): 32.

39 Richard H. Rovere, “The Last Days of Joe McCarthy,” Esquire, August 1958, 36.

40 Ibid., 34, 33.

41 Ibid., 30, 34.

42 Ibid., 30, 34.

43 Ibid., 20, 30.

44 Walter Lippmann to Richard Rovere, 15 December 1958, Series III, Box 100, Folder 1851, Walter Lippmann Papers, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut (hereafter cited as Lippmann Papers); Richard H. Rovere, “The Last Days of Joe McCarthy,” Encounter, December 1958, 45–55; Dwight Macdonald to Richard Rovere, 13 September 1958, Box 3, Folder 7, Additions to Richard H. Rovere Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin (hereafter cited as Rovere Papers Additions); Harry S. Truman to James W. Pinkston, 17 November 1958, Box 2, Folder 1, Rovere Papers; Joseph N. Welch to Richard Rovere, 30 July 1958, Box 3, Folder 10, Rovere Papers Additions. Welch wrote, “That the net effect of his great impact on the nation was bad seems to me clear. But some millions of our citizens violently disagree with me and make their disagreement clear by hating me with a fierceness that stuns me.”

45 “A ‘Damning Indictment’ – One Man’s Opinion,” The American Legion Firing Line, 15 September 1958, 73, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers; “Defiling the Dead,” Our Sunday Visitor, 21 September 1958, Box 19, Esquire Magazine Office Files Reader Mail General 1958–1959 (3), Gingrich Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan; “Editor’s Corner,” American Legion Magazine, October 1958, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers. Also see “From the Managing Editor’s Desk,” Brooklyn Tablet, [n.d.], Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

46 George Sokolsky, “These Days: Joe McCarthy’s Ghost,” Lafayette (Ind.) Journal and Courier, July 25, 1958, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39870460/mccarthys-ghost-sokolsky-journal/; George Sokolsky, “Magazine Summons McCarthy Ghost—To Little Purpose,” n.d., Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

47 “Esquire’s World and Joe McCarthy,” display ad, New York Times, July 30, 1958.

48 Arnold Gingrich to Walter Fanning, July 25, 1958, Box 19, Esquire Magazine Office Files Reader Mail General 1958–1959 (3), Arnold Gingrich Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (hereafter cited as Gingrich Papers).

49 L. Brent Bozell, “National Trends,” National Review, July 4, 1956, 7, 21; L. Brent Bozell, “National Trends,” July 11, 1956, 7; Ralph de Toledano, “Notes for a Controversy,” National Review, September 22, 1956, 15.

50 National Review had advertised in the Times before, but this was the first time one of the advertisements featured content from the journal. Previous advertisements publicized praise for the journal or marketed special publications the company produced.

51 “Esquire’s World and Joe McCarthy,” National Review, August 2, 1958, 102.

52 Bauer’s work on Facts Forum is one exception to the study of the audience. On development of the media critique, see: Greenberg, “The Idea of ‘the Liberal Media’ and Its Roots in the Civil Rights Movement”; Major, “Objective but Not Impartial”; Lane, “Cultivating Distrust of the Mainstream Media”; and Bauer, “Journalism History and Conservative Erasure.”

53 David Nord, “Reading the Newspaper: Strategies and Politics of Reader Response, Chicago, 1912–1917,” Journal of Communication 45, no. 3 (1995), 67, 73–74.

54 Sidney Forsythe, “An Exploratory Study of Letters to the Editors and Their Contributors,” Public Opinion Quarterly 14 (1950), 143–144; William D. Tarrant, “Who Writes Letters to the Editor?” Journalism Quarterly 34 (1957), 501–502; Gary L. Vacin, “A Study of Letter Writers,” Journalism Quarterly 42 (1965), 464–465; Daniel L. Grey and Trevor R. Brown, “Letters to the Editor: Hazy Reflections of Public Opinion,” Journalism Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1970), cited in Bill Reader, Guido H. Stempel III, and Douglass K. Daniel, “Age, Wealth, Education Predict Letters to Editor,” Newspaper Research Journal 25 (2004), 56.

55 David Abrahamson, Magazine-Made America: The Cultural Transformation of the Postwar Periodical (Cresskill: Hampton Press, Inc., 1996): 10–12.

56 Nord, “Reading the Newspaper,” 67.

57 A few readers wrote twice; these letters were analyzed as one unit. If a letter printed in “The Sound and the Fury” was in the Rovere Papers or the Gingrich Papers, the original letter was analyzed. Letters from public figures such as Walter Lippmann and former President Harry Truman were excluded from analysis.

58 Dan Miller to Sir, 4 October 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers; John J. Trotter to Richard Rovere, 19 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers; JM Elizalde to the Editor, 16 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers; Wm. H. Hennessey to Ralph Ginzburg, 12 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

59 James J. Ryan to Editor, 28 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

60 Eugene Hanses to Esquire Magazine, 18 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

61 Karl O. Spiess, Sr., to John Smart, 27 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

62 Harold G. _____ [the name appears to be Cutryling] to Editor, 27 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

63 Unsigned handwritten note on first page of Rovere article and on page from Time, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

64 Milton E. Disser to Esquire, 8 October 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

65 E.S. Bauer to Esquire, received 6 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

66 John J. Mulcahy to Arnold Gingrich, 21 July 1958, Box 19, Esquire Magazine Office Files Reader Mail General 1958-1959 (3), Gingrich Papers.

67 Frank Wallick to Editor, 1 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

68 Mike McAuliffe, letter to the editor, Esquire, October 1958.

69 Jack Harper, letter to the editor, Esquire, October 1958.

70 James Patton to Arnold Gingrich, 31 July 1958, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

71 Henry Schwarzschild to Richard Rovere, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

72 J. Harry Crones to Gentlemen, July 11, 1958, Box 1, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

73 H.T. McCarty to Esquire Inc., 7 October 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

74 P.A. Triot to Esquire, received 29 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers; Earl Harrell to Editor, 25 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

75 Will Scarlett to Editor, received 7 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

76 Triot to Esquire, received 29 July 1958.

77 Trotter to Rovere, 19 August 1958.

78 John Flannery to J.L. Marshall, 7 October 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

79 Miss ____ to Editors, n.d. (letter typed on advertisement for article in New York Times), Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

80 C. Ray Erler to Esquire Inc., 29 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

81 Al Gromacki to The Editor, 7 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

82 John J. Courtney to Editor, Esquire, 19 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

83 Thomas J. Mullen, Jr. to Editors, 30 July 1958, Box 1, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

84 “Coming next month,” display ad, Esquire, n.d., Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers; John Crippen to Arnold Gingrich, 2 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers.

85 Lee E. Lane to Harold Hayes, 7 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

86 Mario Corso to Gingrich, 24 July 1958, Box 19, “Esquire Magazine Office Files Reader Mail General 1958–1959 (3), Gingrich Papers.

87 Daniel McCaughna, letter to the editor, Esquire, November 1958.

88 Millie McIlwaine to Rovere, 16 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

89 Hanses to Esquire Magazine, 19 August 1958.

90 Frances H. Mylott to Mr. Smart, 30 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

91 Thomas J. Mullen, Jr. to Editors, 20 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

92 Marilyn Duncan to Esquire Magazine, 30 July 1958, Box 11, Folder 2, Rovere Papers. Sherman Adams had served as chief of staff to President Dwight Eisenhower. He resigned after accepting a fur coat from a manufacturer under federal investigation.

93 David Mathews to Gentlemen, 30 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

94 Trotter to Rovere, 19 August 1958.

95 James C. Dunne to The Editor, 25 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

96 Patrick Brady to Editor of Esquire Magazine, 21 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

97 John C. Buckley to Editor, 26 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

98 Brady to Editor, 21 August 1958.

99 Mullen to Editors, 30 July 1958.

100 F.J. Toohey, letter to the editor, Esquire, November 1958.

101 James J. Ryan to Editor, 28 July 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

102 Hanses to Esquire Magazine, 18 August 1958.

103 Gerald Nyhan to The Editor, 2 August 1958, Box 10, Folder 26, Rovere Papers.

104 Duncan to Esquire Magazine, 30 July 1958.

105 Hennessey to Ginzburg, 12 July 1958; Marian Bommer to My Dear Sir, 16 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers; C.S. Thomas to Rovere, 6 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers. Readers also attached clippings from Catholic publications the Brooklyn Tablet and Our Sunday Visitor.

106 Marian Bommer to My Dear Sir, 16 August 1958, Box 11, Folder 1, Rovere Papers.

107 Brooks E. Hefner and Edward Timke, “Circulating American Magazines Dataset from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Publisher’s Reports,” Circulating American Magazines, Center for Open Science, http://circulatingamericanmagazines.org/ (accessed August 13, 2020).

108 Two letters mentioned a global conspiracy, which went far beyond the “Liberal machine” described by National Review. They were extreme outliers within the total body of letters.

109 John B. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988): 140.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie B. Lane

Julie B. Lane is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Boise State University.