Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News” by A. Brad Schwartz (macmillan)
Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News by A. Brad Schwartz arrives in bookstores on May 5, but it is already getting favorable reviews.
Schwartz, who co-wrote an episode of the award-winning PBS series American Experience on The War of the Worlds broadcast, examined audience ratings and thousands of letters written to Welles, the Mercury Theatre and the FCC to determine the extent of the panic, which he concluded has been exaggerated. His book is based in part on research for his senior thesis at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Critics are impressed with his work:
Kirkus – “Drawing on both ratings and hundreds of archived original letters from listeners (both pro and con) addressed to the FCC and CBS, Schwartz easily dismantles the idea that Welles alarmed the nation, as most people were tuned to another station. Among actual listeners, many knew the program was fiction, either because they heard it announced as such at the beginning or because they saw through it—and loved it. Relatively few people lost their grips on reality, but the press saw them as the majority and never bothered to check if they actually were… An entertaining assessment of a watershed moment in American life and its lasting effect on popular culture.”
Booklist – “Schwartz’s storytelling vividly connects the broadcast to the larger issues of the day. The outcry afterward led to a debate over the role of censorship, as well as research that revolutionized our understanding of how people interpret media messages. The lesson is as relevant now as it was then—more than Martians, Schwartz shows, we should be concerned about the invasion of fear-spreading media against an unsuspecting population. Fascinating as an analysis of both pop culture and the media.”
Publishers Weekly – Broadcast Hysteria “lays out a balanced case — recognizing that some Americans did consider War of the Worlds an actual news report and were deeply frightened by it, but that most treated it as a scary prank or a betrayal of the radio’s supposed objectivity. The book rightly emphasizes the enormous power mass media wields over the emotions and politics of the country… Welles’s Martian landing might not have fooled today’s listeners, but our vulnerability and our appetite for fake news persists. Schwartz’s book is an impeccable account of the most famous radio show in history, a fascinating biography of Orson Welles, and a vital lesson about the responsibility of the media.”
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