ACLU Charges Widespread Radio Censorship
In a report on practices in the radio industry released on this day, the ACLU charged that censorship was widely practiced.
The report identified 70 censorship cases since 1930. These cases included refusing to fulfill signed contracts with certain people or organizations because of their political associations, demanding advance copies of speeches or scripts and then deleting certain passages, and drowning out or simply cutting off speakers in the middle of programs.
The ACLU recommended federal legislation to protect “freedom of the air.”
Read: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)
Read the ACLU FBI File (not the complete file): http://vault.fbi.gov/ACLU
Learn about the ACLU today: www.aclu.org
Read the current Federal Communications Commission statement on censorship here.