In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. With support from the Fund, Katie Thornton’s “The Divided Dial” podcast, aired by NPR’s On The Media program, examined how one side of the political spectrum came to dominate talk radio — and how Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the United States, is using the airwaves to launch a right-wing media empire.
Grantee podcast explores how political conservatives came to dominate talk radio
