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Reassessing The Army-Mccarthy Hearings: Live Television's Impact On The Fate Of Senator Joseph R. Mccarthy, David Ozmun
Reassessing The Army-Mccarthy Hearings: Live Television's Impact On The Fate Of Senator Joseph R. Mccarthy, David Ozmun
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Many broadcast historians customarily credit television with the public's eventual renunciation of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his Communist-hunting tactics. Normally cited are the ABC and Dumont networks' live coverage of the Army-McCarthy Hearings and Edward R. Murrow's See It Now broadcasts during the Spring of 1954. Utilizing literature review and secondary analysis of polling and census data from 1950 through 1954, this paper suggests the live broadcasts did not necessarily achieve the results credited them by many broadcast history textbooks.
Findings suggest it is doubtful that the ABC network reached a national audience, that the audience size was …