In all my peregrinations through Variety microfilm, I found several references to a man named Paul Morency from Hartford, CT, who stood up for himself as an AM station-runner in 1951 -- for himself and many other stations around the country.
Morency apparently stood up for freedom of speech on radio when the government declared that "the first ammendment...does not apply to facilities which operate under a government license" (such as radio and television, which are assigned broadcast rights and channels, etc.) a few years before our fave Wisconsin junior senator started holding hearings on TV, on things like whether the Army was Communist or not. (It was.)
Morency was basically the Edward Murrow of the airwaves, but without all the "good night, and good luck"-ing. Also, apparently "editorializing" was already banned at his station, WTIC.
Ah, the good old days. Life is so much simpler now...(when everything on the radio is editorializing, and the FCC sticks to censoring bad words and body parts).
Read all about his claims in 1949: "Radio Edit Freedom Fake, Says Morency."
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