Ralph Engelman′s history of the growth of public radio and television in America is timely, compelling, and instructive. Very useful for citizens who take seriously the need for public use of the public airwaves, which we need to remember, the people own but do not control. --Ralph Nader, Director, The Center for the Study of Responsive Law "There is no cynicism or stridency in Ralph Engelman′s definitive history of public broadcasting′s failure to fulfill its promise, only documentation of the immense problems endemic to government and corporate sponsored mass media. For models of hope, this volume acknowledges the civic discourse that has thrived in the margins of public broadcasting--in the independent community and in the homespun programming of the public access movement." --Dee Dee Halleck, Cofounder, Paper Tiger Television & Deep Dish TV "Public Radio and Television in America by Ralph Engelman effectively navigates the complex, controversial, and often maddening history of public broadcasting as a political and cultural force. Always more important than its audience size in America, public broadcasting′s promise and problems, as well as its heroes and villains, are treated effectively and well in this solid and critical analysis. The book is compact, yet sufficiently substantive and blessedly well written and well documented." --Everette E. Dennis, Executive Director, Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, editor, Media Studies Journal "Ralph Engelman′s Public Radio and Television in America is a chilling description of how noncommercial broadcasting is the tragic victim of conservative corporate politics that have spent most of this century trying to cripple and kill it." --Ben H. Bagdikian, former Dean, Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California,

American newspapers have faced competition from new media for over ninety years. Today digital media challenge the printed word. In the 1920s, broadcast radio was the threatening upstart. At the time, newspaper publishers of all sizes turned threat into opportunity by establishing their own stations. Many, such as the Chicago Tribune's WGN, are still in operation. By 1940 newspapers owned 30 percent of America's radio stations. This new type of enterprise, the multimedia corporation, troubled those who feared its power to control the flow of news and information. In Sound Business, historian Michael Stamm traces how these corporations and their critics reshaped the ways Americans received the news. Stamm is attuned to a neglected aspect of U.S. media history: the role newspaper owners played in communications from the dawn of radio to the rise of television. Drawing on a wide array of primary sources, he recounts the controversies surrounding joint newspaper and radio operations. These companies capitalized on synergies between print and broadcast production. As their advertising revenue grew, so did concern over their concentrated influence. Federal policymakers, especially during the New Deal, responded to widespread concerns about the consequences of media consolidation by seeking to limit and even ban cross ownership. The debates between corporations, policymakers, and critics over how to regulate these new kinds of media businesses ultimately structured the channels of information distribution in the United States and determined who would control the institutions undergirding American society and politics. Sound Business is a timely examination of the connections between media ownership, content, and distribution, one that both expands our understanding of mid-twentieth-century America and offers lessons for the digital age.

Graber discusses the media and its place in the public and private sectors, the media's influence on individual attitudes and perceptions, and the media's coverage of government institutions and political situations.

Tells how Blacks used radio