bott, richard

CNP funder?

weyrich

Richard Bott - CNP Board of Governors (1996). President, Bott Radio Network. In 1986, South Africa's Department of Information (DOI) authorized expenditures of $73 million for more than 160 secret projects to buy politicians and media favorable to the apartheid state. [National Reporter, Winter 1985] Rev. Moon's Washington Times was one of the beneficiaries-- approximately $4.5 million was funneled to Moon's overseas enterprises... The current Christian Right media treatment of South Africa was organized at the February 1986 convention of the National Religious Broadcasters... In May, National Religious Broadcasters executive director Ben Armstrong toured South Africa with... Dick Bott, owner of a string of Christian radio stations in the Midwest... the tour was paid for not by U.S. broadcasters but by an "anonymous group of South African businessmen." Armstrong confirmed this and agreed that some of the money may come from the South African government. [Covert Action Information Bulletin 27:25]

Dick Bott; Man of Vision

Bott Radio Network has more than 100 stations throughout the U.S.

Dick Bott, Chairman and Founder with his son, Rich Bott, II President/CEO of the Bott Radio Network (BRN) have more than 100 stations in part of 16 states reaching over 51 million people throughout the United States. The goal of the Network is to provide quality Bible teaching with Christian news and information. Multitudes listen to Bott Radio Network learning the deep truths of God’s word through the greatest Bible teachers of today.

Dick Bott has been behind a microphone since he was a boy singing for Child Evangelismin churches throughout Minneapolis, Minnesota. His career in sales began at the age of nine when he sold apples out of a wagon to the neighbors. “We had three apple trees in the back yard and my mom let me have all the ones that fell on the ground. I earned ten cents a bag and usually sold three bags a day.”

World War II pulled America out of a major depression. “My dad struggled until the war broke out when he was able to get a job that paid $100 a week at a defense plant,” said Bott. “I never thought to ask my dad for money although he would have given it to me had I asked. When I needed money I figured out a way to earn it.”

As a boy, Bott ordered items out of the Spore Catalog at discount rates and sold them door to door. He later worked as a Bell Hop at the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “I hid my tips in a little box in the basement of the hotel so I wouldn’t spend them. Then when I wanted to take Sherley out I had the money.”

His career in radio began after marrying his lovely wife Sherley Patterson at the age of nineteen. Her father owned a Radio Station in San Francisco that aired shows for China Town, the Black, Italian, Hispanic and Greek communities. Bott was hired to sell advertising for 20% commission plus room and board at his in-laws home. He worked hard and made friends with ethnic groups throughout San Francisco as well as the national and local advertisers. Within a short time he was able to buy a home and start a family.

After becoming very successful at selling advertising for his father in-law’s radio station, Bott had a vision of having his own station. To have the money to buy a station, they sold their home with all their furniture and moved back in with Sherley’s parents where they had their third child. With the sale of the home they had $10,000 to buy a station.

Sherley’s friends at church wondered how she could give up her nice home and furniture. “We didn’t feel we were making a big sacrifice. When the vision is big, the sacrifice seems small,” Sherley reminisced.

A station in Salinas/Monterey, California was being sold by two men who lived in Oregon. They had bought the station five years previously to make a profit but the manager they hired did not act responsibly in running the station and the DJ’s partied all the time. They were losing money and had to sell for the price they paid for it. Bott bought the station for $250,000; he paid $5000 down and took on three mortgages. The first thing he did was fire the DJ’s and hire an announcer who played Big Band music and gave the weather and a little news. “I already had the contacts so selling advertising was not difficult. We never missed a payment and were able to pay off the station in 3 ½ years,” Dick said.

After the station was paid off Bott began to think there had to be a greater purpose for his life. He wanted to make a difference. “The radio station we were running was profitable, but it wasn’t satisfying. It wasn’t making a difference in the lives of people. I told Sherley that I wanted to have a Christian radio station. Christians buy furniture and eat just as everyone else does. Why not have a radio station for the Christian community?”

In the 50’s and early 60’s there were only a few Christian Radio stations and they were all run by Christian organizations or churches. There were no fully commercial stations offering only Christian Programming. “Whatever we do,” Bott told his wife Sherley, “the programs on our station must be totally trustworthy with financial integrity.”

Things were going so well in Salinas Monterey that they didn’t jump into selling the station to start another endeavor. A lawyer contacted Bott saying he had a client that wanted to buy his station. Without putting the station up for sale it sold for $350,000, which was $100,000 more than they paid for it three years previously.

After selling the station the Bott family took a year off. “We may never have a time like this again,” Bott told Sherley. “A time to enjoy life and our family.”

That year the Bott family found a house in Daly City, California and bought a 35 foot cabin cruiser. For a solid year they enjoyed each other and their children. “After a year it was hard to go back to work, but I had promised God I would start that Christian Radio Station,” Dick related.

Bott looked for a market that had at least a million people. Doing the math Bott knew that if there were only 100,000 people and 5% listened to his station the audience would only be 5000 listeners. There had to be a million people to make it worthwhile with at least 50,000 listeners. He wasn’t concerned where it was as long as there was a market of a million people. A Country/Western station was for sale in Independence, Missouri, which covered the whole Kansas City metropolitan area. The owner had died so the station was in probate. Bott purchased it for $300,000 and filed with the FCC to buy the station which took six months. The station was at the Blue Ridge Mall so the family stayed at the U-Smile Inn on 40 Highway.

They brought a U-Haul trailer with only their clothes, some folding chairs and the children’s toys and looked for a house that would rent to a family with four children. They found a place in Mission, Kansas which made it a long drive to 40 Highway in Independence before I-70 was built.

He let the DJ’s of the Country Western Station go and hired Bill Freeman as the announcer. On November 12th, 1962 there was one minute of silence. Then Bill Freeman announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is KCCV 1510, Kansas City’s Christian Voice.” The Billy Graham Crusade Choir sang, “Oh For A Thousand Tongues to Sing.” Then the song, “We Have a Story to Tell to the Nations,” was played. Tears welled up in Dick Bott’s eyes as he recalled that miraculous day in 1962 when Bott Radio Network first began.

Today there are over 100 Bott Radio Network stations throughout the country in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Multitudes have learned the Bible through wise teachers such as Dr. Chuck Swindoll, J. Vernon McGee,Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, Dr. James Kennedy, Dr. Adrian Rogers, Chip Ingram and Dick Bott’s “The Complete Story.”

On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, Richard P. “Dick” Bott, Sr. was inducted into the National Religious Broadcasters Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee. The NRB is the world’s largest association of Christian communicators, with over 1,400 member organizations, and the Hall of Fame Award is the highest honor the organization confers. Past recipients have included Dr. Billy Graham,Dr. James Dobson,Dr. Theodore Epp, Dr. Charles Swindoll, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and Dr. Charles Stanley.

Dick Bott, with his son Richard Bott, II,(President/CEO), along with all the Bott Radio Network Staff are fulfilling the Great Commission by doing what Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20.

By: Patricia Partney Dascher

Reprinted and updated with the permission of Soul Magazine April-May 2007.

Rich Bott

President/CEO Bott Radio Network

Overland Park, Kansas, United States500+ connections

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Bott Radio Network

May 1981 - Present41 years 3 months

Overland Park, Kansas

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https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions

shad net bk

Over the past two decades, the American media landscape has been transformed. At the turn of the last century, a hundred-year-old news canon still reigned supreme: professional journalism from wire services such as the Associated Press and leading newspapers set a national news agenda. Magazines, broadcasters, and local newspapers added their own reporting, but paid close attention to the national template. The formula worked: the late 20th century was the Golden Age of the journalism business. Professional news organizations played a powerful role in society, and ad-rich newspapers and broadcasters made record profits.

That all changed in the early 2000’s, when the new digital platforms — including Google, Facebook, and Craigslist — challenged that structure and blew up its business model. Journalism’s mainstays, lucrative display and classified advertising, migrated online with the advantage of reaching targeted consumers. Audiences who had been told “content wants to be free” balked at the paywalls that compensated journalists to report and editors to vet their work.

As a result, between 2000 and 2020, network news divisions closed scores of foreign and national bureaus, and one in five US newspapers failed. Over a thousand counties, most of them rural, were left with no newspaper at all.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and as professional journalism disappeared from thousands of communities, new media models stood ready to take its place. The Radical Right’s media ecosystem was built on previous decades of media development through religious broadcasting and political direct mail. They benefited not just from the news deserts, they also combined with the opportunities presented by new media technologies. These would mushroom into an entire ecosystem of religious fundamentalist radio programs and podcasts, many of them disguised as “news programs,” as well as countless digital platforms and social media initiatives that have been feeding a toxic diet of political propaganda and COVID misinformation to their audiences in recent years.

To understand this ecosystem, it’s useful to explore its roots. Many of these can be traced to a shadowy organization called the Council for National Policy, founded in 1981 in the wake of Reagan’s election. Its founding fathers were strategist Paul Weyrich, networker Morton Blackwell, and mass marketer Richard Viguerie.

The architects of the CNP’s goals were stunningly ambitious: to dominate the United States, and reshape the state as a white fundamentalist institution. They honed their methods with a series of institutional takeovers, beginning with the Southern Baptist Convention, where moderates were ruthlessly purged and hardliners were installed in positions of power. Next in line was the traditional Republican Party. Over the next four years, the CNP leadership would bully moderate Republicans and target the recalcitrant, to the point of supporting their opponents. Once the way was cleared, they would propel CNP protégés into positions of power and influence.

The architects of the Radical Right studied the art of the “soft coup d’etat” – not just to take over the Republican Party, but to weaken various public institutions that challenged their “Biblical values.” These included public schools that taught evolution, universities that advanced climate science, and businesses that supported equal rights for the LGBT community.

They also disapproved of the professional news media, which seemed to bear every trait they spurned: urban, liberal, and more secular by the minute.¹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote1sym) They resolved to break its hold on the nation’s psyche.

On the eve of the Reagan era, this goal seemed unlikely. The prestige of American journalism was at its apex, after journalists brought down a President with the Watergate investigation, and challenged a war with the Pentagon Papers.

James Squires summarized the role of the press in American history in his 1993 book “Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of American Newspapers.” His assessment is worth quoting at length:

It fell to the press to stir the colonies to revolution in the first place. A hundred years later, it was the newspaper voices of abolition that ultimately propelled the nation to the twin brinks of destruction and greatness over the slavery question – the Civil War. Another century later, it was dramatic press accounts of oppression in the South that produced desegregation across the land, as well as a public rebuke of the war in Vietnam.

Squires had come to praise journalism, not to bury it. But his paean inadvertently listed the original sins of American journalism as they were perceived by the fundamentalists. The Southern Baptist Convention had been established in defense of slavery; it was the meddling Northern press that fanned the flames of abolition. A century later, they thought the segregated South was doing fine until Northern newspapermen arrived to tell them it wasn’t. (One frequently cited turning point was the arrival of Harrison Salisbury from the New York Times to cover the Birmingham protests, which ignited a national debate on the Civil Rights movement.²(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote2sym))

Squires continued:

Between 1960 and 1974, the press played a vital role in an unprecedented empowerment of the citizenry—the extension of participatory rights to minorities in new civil rights legislation and a similar enhancement of the roles of women and youth by the feminist and peace movements. In such a system, it is the reporting of unfettered truth about how things are and ideas of how they might be made better that motivates a citizenry to act and educates it to courses of action. People cannot govern what they cannot see. And whatever its imperfections, the unquestioned purpose of the old business of journalism was to provide America with an accurate reflection of itself and the understanding necessary to preserve freedom.³(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote3sym)

The 1946 Hutchins Commission report defined news as “a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning.” Here Squires was paying homage to the concept of fact-based reporting.But the CNP’s Morton Blackwell stressed that “being right” was less important than winning.⁴(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote4sym) The power and influence of the national media were mighty, and the fundamentalist challenge might have come to naught – if the “old business of journalism” had not decayed from within.

Modern American journalism is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. Nineteenth century newspapers were generally openly partisan party organs (as reflected by the names like the “Arkansas Democrat-Gazette” and the “Waterbury Republican”). In the Civil War, Confederate reports were often written by officers who exaggerated their victories; many Northern correspondents moonlighted working for the government.⁵(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote5sym)

Professional journalism, along with journalism schools, associations and prizes to uphold its vales, evolved over the next century. Nonetheless, while American journalists benefited from an usual degree of political freedom and legal protection, their outlets were still answerable to business interests and advertising revenues. The twentieth century brought massive growth in the newspaper and magazine industries, and the birth of broadcasting; media companies founded and run by entrepreneurs – in Squires’ words, “men of wealth, power, politics and eccentricity.”⁶(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote6sym)

The Second World War served as a great unifier, as the press became an important component of the war effort. Broadcasters expanded their news divisions as a public service, exempting them from the need to turn a profit, and reaped national prestige in return. The spirit of public service lingered. In 1962 William Paley told CBS correspondents, “You guys cover the news; I’ve got Jack Benny to make money for me.”⁷(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote7sym) News organizations proliferated across the country, most with local ownership. In 1940 there were 1878 newspapers in the US; as of 1946 there were a dozen large magazine companies and competing newspapers in 117 American cities.⁸(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote8sym)

Metropolitan dailies assumed an outsized role. If the New York Times ran with a major story, other media had to follow suit. If it passed on it, other outlets were less likely to follow up. The perspective of midtown Manhattan could be radically different than other parts of the country, and no matter how diligently news organizations pursued fact-based reporting, they could lose sight of their own subjectivity.

Print and broadcast journalism continued to grow in influence and revenue. Newspaper penetration peaked between roughly 1970 and 1990, when the ratio of circulation to American households approached 1:1.⁹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote9sym) Network news, launched in the 1940’s, reached an apex around the same time, and the evening news expanded from fifteen minutes to half an hour in the early 1960’s. By 1980, 75 percent of American households were tuned to network news programs over the dinner hour.¹⁰(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote10sym)

But this news ecosystem (as some journalism professors called it) was already in trouble. Newspapers were advertising-rich, producing returns of 10-20 percent, outstripping most investments in the manufacturing sector.¹¹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote11sym) But family-owned newspapers paid a price for their success; when the patriarch died, their descendants faced inheritance taxes of up to 70 percent, prompting many to cash out by selling their papers to corporations. Family owners were answerable to their communities and their peers, but corporations responded to shareholders who were more interested in quarterly earnings than Pulitzer prizes. By the early 2000’s, the new news business was implementing massive cost-saving measures: firing thousands of reporters; slashing circulations in under-served communities with commercially unattractive demographics; refusing to invest in the vital new technologies that were transforming the culture. The new corporate owners squeezed every last penny from their newspapers, in many cases using their revenues to float their debt in other divisions.

The result was devastating. Local voices were silenced, local populations abandoned. Ownership of the newspapers was increasingly concentrated. By 1990, just fourteen companies controlled half of the 1,600 daily papers, and the concentration of ownership would increase.¹²(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote12sym)

Newspapers were losing ground to television, but network news divisions were also troubled. Over the late 20th century the networks were acquired by increasingly diversified corporations. CBS’s Viacom, NBC’s General Electric and ABC’s Disney saw no need to subsidize news divisions and directed them to turn a profit like other divisions. Television news reporting slid into softer stories, shorter soundbites, more reporting tied to entertainment, sensationalism, and human interest. Over the next few decades, the management closed both international and domestic bureaus and laid off legions of reporters. Cable and public broadcasting filled some of the information gaps, but cable channels tended to emphasize opinion, debate, and sensationalism over traditional reporting and cultivated like-minded niche audiences. Public television was worthy but chronically underfunded.

Over the decades the American appetite for news declined, especially among younger people. For much of the 20th century the broader American public had largely been working off the same page, relying on the network evening news and newspapers that followed the wires and the New York Times’ lead, on major national and international stories, but that accord weakened under economic pressure. The worst was yet to come.

The digital revolution was gathering steam.News organizations warily adopted the use of email and online search functions, but print outlets were fatally slow to understand how the upheaval would affect their business model and innovate in response. Display and classified advertising made up their core income; subscriptions were a minimal source of revenue.

In 1995 a newcomer to San Francisco named Craig Newmark launched a digital service that would turn into Craigslist. It took a few years for the impact to hit, but then it was catastrophic. Newspaper advertising revenues, which peaked from 2000, to 2005, utterly collapsed. More digital assaults were underway. Over the 1990’s digital entrepreneurs experimented with advertising approaches that took advantage of their ability to direct advertising to the users most likely to respond. The public moved online, and digital advertising was waiting for them: on their searches, in their emails, on their phones.

Derek Thompson described the collapse in the Atlantic: “Between 2000 and 2015, print newspaper advertising revenue fell from about $60 billion to about $20 billion, wiping out the gains of the previous 50 years.”¹³(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote13sym)

In 2013, the struggling Washington Post would be sold to Jeff Bezos for $250 million, which would cover a middling superyacht. In 2016 the Tampa Tribune went for a paltry $9.5 million, the same price that was paid for a racehorse named Songbird the following year. The paper was subsumed into its rival, the Tampa Bay Times. Since 2004, almost 1,800 US newspapers disappeared altogether, and hundreds of communities became “news deserts” without a single local news organization. These were disproportionately aging communities of lower-income residents without college educations.¹⁴(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote14sym)

The classified and display advertising that had paid journalists’ salaries migrated online. The erratic business model that underwrote professional reporting did not. By 2018, Forbes estimated the worth of Craiglist had grown to nearly $4 billion.¹⁵(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote15sym) It was fairly easy to migrate news content online, and make it easier to update, navigate and personalize. But digital ads sold for a tiny fraction of print ads, and once readers got used to free online content, it was hard to build revenues from paid subscriptions.

The catastrophe was less visible from the Boston-Washington corridor, where the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post built online readerships and began to transition towards a new digital business model – even if the future was far from secure. The rest of the country’s newspaper culture suffered a colony collapse. One of the most significant casualties was statehouse reporting, the traditional purview of mid-sized newspapers in Middle America. Pew Research reported that between 2003 and 2014, the number of full-time statehouse reporters dropped 35 percent.¹⁶(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote16sym) The press corps in many statehouses dwindled, allowing state lawmakers to go about rewriting laws with less scrutiny.

All of this must have been music to the ears of the Council for National Policy. The ongoing disruption of the traditional news industry created a vacuum, and they were systematically building a stable of media partners prepared to fill it. The regulatory environment was working in their favor.

The gutting of the Fairness Doctrine had opened the door for the Salem communications empire, originally founded as a radio operation by fundamentalist broadcasters Stuart Epperson and Edward Atsinger III. Salem and other CNP media partners produced highly politicized one-sided broadcasts. CNP member Donald Wildmon founded American Family Radio in 1991; it would expand into a network of almost 200 stations in 35 states. American Family Radio developed three different programming streams designed for its various markets: AFR Talk, AFR Hybrid, and Urban Family Talk, which employed an African-American staff to target an African-American audience. All three adhered to the statement of faith:

The American Family Association believes that God has communicated absolute truth to mankind, and that all people are subject to the authority of God’s Word at all times. Therefore AFA believes that a culture based on biblical truth best serves the well-being of our nation and our families, in accordance. with the vision of our founding documents…

The organization’s action statement spurred followers to “promote virtue by upholding in culture that which is right, true and good according to Scripture.” Its overtly political goal was to “motivate people to take a stand on cultural and moral issues at the local, state, and national levels.”¹⁷(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote17sym)

Another CNP radio partner was the Bott Radio Network, founded in 1962 by Dick Bott, a former child evangelist, and his wife Sherley. Bott quickly recognized the potential of commercial religious broadcasting, and his radio network grew to over 100 stations in fifteen states, heavily concentrated in the Bible Belt.¹⁸(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote18sym) States like Kansas and Missouri had plenty of news deserts without a daily newspaper, but they were blanketed byBott radio signals carrying the programs of CNP stalwarts like James Dobson and Gary Bauer.¹⁹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote19sym)

Together, Salem’s Epperson and Atsinger, American Family Radio’s Donald Wildmon, and Bott Radio’s Dick Bott – all members of the CNP – built overlapping radio empires that were all but invisible to the urban northeast. But it was hard to drive very far across the Plains without running into their signals and their increasingly virulent rhetoric.

Wildmon’s American Family Radio network, for example, produced programs with titles like “Infanticide Adopted by Democrats” and “Homosexuality is the Dividing Line Between Light and Darkness.”²⁰(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote20sym) One program asked how Christians should respond to a Muslim call to prayer, and answered “They should take the call to prayer as a call to arms, to go to war in the Spirit against the demon-god Allah and the spiritual deception of Islam.”²¹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote21sym)

The Salem Radio Network was especially aggressive in acquiring new stations.Atsinger and Epperson developed a successful strategy of purchasing leveraged stations in urban markets. But they ran into an obstacle with the Federal Communications Commission, which prohibited a broadcaster from owning too many stations in one market. Epperson and Atsinger—by now members of the CNP Board of Governors– joined other broadcasters to lobby against the regulations; Salem contributed $74,000 to key legislators. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was written by industry lobbyists, promoted by Newt Gingrich, and signed into law by Bill Clinton.²²(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote22sym) It eased the ownership regulations to the benefit of Salem and other large companies. Salem went on an acquisition binge and created a system of station “clusters” to cut costs.

In 1999 Forbes magazine reported that Salem Communications (as it was now called) owned 57 stations. This made it the eighth largest broadcaster and the largest religious broadcaster in the country, with at least one station in 19 of biggest 25 markets. “Christian radio” had become the third most popular format in the US. (following country music and talk). ²³(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote23sym)

In July 1999 Salem issued an initial public offering. The company was booming. It still reaped half of its revenue – nearly $78 million — from the sale of block programming, but advertising accounted for a third of its revenues, and it was growing. The IPO’s influx of capital allowed the company to acquire more stations.^ ^²⁴(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote24sym)

Salem’s reach extended beyond religious programming, it also rode the wave of conservative talk radio. Local radio stations, like hometown newspapers, had traditionally been owned by – and answerable to — members of the community. In the wake of deregulation, over a quarter of the nation’s radio stations were sold, many passing from local to corporate owners, while new satellite technology facilitated national programming.

Eventually the Salem, Bott, and American Family Radio empires – all owned and operated by members of the CNP – extended to at least forty-six states. (As of January 2019, they owned stations in every state except Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Alaska.) Their programming, including political content produced by CNP members, was utilized by other radio networks, including the Christian Satellite Network and Family Life Radio. In combination with their affiliates, the CNP radio broadcasters covered the entire nation; California and Texas were blanked by all three. ABC, NBC, and CBS began to dump their radio stations, especially in small and mid-sized markets, and their news programs disappeared. The Great American News Desert grew drier by the year.

National Public Radio, founded in 1970, did much to fill in the gap. As it grew to over 1,000 member stations, NPR offered traditional journalism and newscasts that presented multiple perspectives on public issues. Listeners could turn to NPR for detailed, thoughtful interviews with leaders from the leading political parties. Nonetheless, many conservatives in Middle America distrusted NPR as a smugly liberal voice with little interest in their issues, a maddening focus on identity politics, and a propensity to promote the Democrats’ agenda.

NPR tilted urban and coastal for obvious reasons. Its stations, its listeners – and its listener contributions – were concentrated in urban areas, suburbs and college towns. NPR’s weekly listenership would reach 28.5 million by 2017 – but that was still less than ten percent of the national population. Public broadcasting was founded with federal support, but the ongoing assault by Republican administrations whittled that down to almost nothing over the years. NPR responded by basing its budgets on listener contributions. But that meant that urban NPR stations—especially powerhouse stations in New York, Washington and San Francisco— had outsized budgets and programming capacity. Stations in conservative, rural areas – the news deserts that needed them most – got by on a fraction of the funding, with part-time employees and spotty local coverage.

Oklahoma, for example, has six NPR stations, mostly in cities and college towns, while Bott and American Family Radio have a combined twenty stations blanketing the state.²⁵(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote25sym) And radio matters: it remains an important part of daily life for millions of Americans, whether in the home, the workplace, or the car.²⁶(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote26sym)

Salem Communications developed three principle formats for its stations: Christian (fundamentalist) talk, contemporary Christian music, and conservative news and talk. and blocks of religious programming (AM). ²⁷(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote27sym) The company created a syndication service that distributed talk programs and a 24-hour news service to over 2,000 affiliates nationwide. It billed its programs as “Christian Radio’s Definitive Source for News” that “breaks the ivory tower approach of the traditional networks.”²⁸(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote28sym) This was not news about Christianity, it was current events filtered through a highly partisan fundamentalist lens. Salem’s “Christian journalism” was a new genre, unhampered by professional practices of multi-sourced reporting, fact-checking, and corrections.

The Salem, Bott and American Family Radio networks, all run by members of the CNP, bypassed the crisis in business models that afflicted the rest of the industry, buoyed by blocks of airtime sold to fundamentalist churches and advertising sold to CNP affiliates such as the Family Research Council.

Further revenues resulted from the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA, pronounced D-shay), promoted by Senator Orrin Hatch. Hatch and his family had extensive involvement in the nutritional supplements industry, which is based in Hatch’s home state of Utah. DSHEA prevented the FDA from regulating harmful or fraudulent supplements before they hit the market. The Los Angeles Times concluded, “The harvest [of DSHEA] has been a public health disaster.”²⁹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote29sym) The elderly were especially easy marks. Bott and American Family Radio run ads for products such as “vitamin cures” for impotence and organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research, which argues “Birds didn’t evolve from dinosaurs because they can fly.”³⁰(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote30sym) Salem’s online outlet RedState rented its email lists to the Health Sciences Institute, which used it to promote a product that supposedly “vaporizes cancer in six weeks.”³¹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote31sym)

Salem’s stations took a regional approach. In Irving, Texas, “The Word 100.7 FM” was overtly religious. Focus on the Family and related programming offered advice from a fundamentalist perspective for listeners’ daily problems of marriage infidelity, alcoholism, and depression, and condemned abortion and homosexuality. CNP member and attorney Jay Sekulow’s programs expounded on policy issues from a fundamentalist perspective.

Beyond the South, Salem’s “conservative news and talk” format built on the success of talk radio’s secular “shock jocks” like Rush Limbaugh, promoting hosts such as Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, and the ubiquitous Sekulow. Salem’s Detroit station, “The Patriot WDCK,” focused on the anxieties of the Rust Belt: “politics, pop culture, the war on terror, education, immigration, and much more.”³²(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote32sym)

Atsinger and Epperson expanded their political footprint along with their radio empire. In 2005 journalist Adam Piore published a detailed history of Salem’s strategy called “A Higher Frequency” in Mother Jones magazine. Piore reported that between 1998 and 2004, they and their company offered $423,000 in federal campaign contributions, 96 percent of it to Republicans. This rendered them the sixth largest donor in the industry.³³(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote33sym)In 2000 Atsinger, Epperson, and a colleague donated $780,000 towards a California state ballot initiative to oppose gay marriage.

Conservative and fundamentalist talk radio served as both the training grounds and meeting place for a new generation of leadership. One beneficiary was a young Indiana lawyer named Mike Pence. Pence, a Catholic who converted to fundamentalist Christianity in college, made two unsuccessful runs for a Congressional seat in 1988 and 1990. In 1991 he accepted a position as president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. This was the Indiana affiliate of the State Policy Network, whose members were described as a “mini-Heritage Foundation in each state,” concentrating on influencing state legislation. The State Policy Network funds its state affiliates, and is heavily funded by the Charles Koch Foundation and the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, whose major backers include the Koch brothers and the CNP’s DeVos family.³⁴(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote34sym)

From 1994 to 1999, Pence worked as a host for conservative radio programs, many of them syndicated across the state. Pence used the job to hone his public speaking skills, build a following and promote his image as a self-described “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.” His folksy baritone was well-suited for radio and his youthful face, prematurely white hair and “aw-shucks” manner sold him as a “safe” baby-boomer who respected his elders and drank milk for a nightcap.But he was a stalwart opponent to abortion, Planned Parenthood, and same-sex marriage.³⁵(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote35sym) His mild exterior belied a bigoted streak. While he was president of the Indiana Policy Review, it published an article called “Military Necessity and Homosexuality” stating, “The homosexuals are not as a group able-bodied. They are known to carry extremely high rates of disease brought on because of the nature of their sexual practices and the promiscuity which is a hallmark of their lifestyle.”³⁶(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote36sym)

In 1998 Pence invited a 35-year-old Louisiana state legislator named Tony Perkins to appear on his radio show.³⁷(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote37sym) Perkins had come to Indianapolis to testify before the state legislature on the “covenant marriage “ law he had drafted in Louisiana, which created a voluntary marriage contract restricting the right to divorce. Like Pence, Perkins was a fierce opponent of gay marriage and abortion. He was also one of nine Louisianans who belonged to the Council on National Policy.³⁸(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote38sym)

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Perkins and Pence shared a talent for broadcasting and a thirst for power, though it wasn’t initially clear who would pursue each path. In 2000 Pence ran for Congress again, and this time he won. His radio expertise made him a hot commodity among Republicans on Capitol Hill, and his reactionary position on social issues won him favor with the Council for National Policy.

In 2003, 14 fundamentalists, including CNP stalwarts Paul Weyrich, Donald Wildmon, Gary Bauer, Richard Bott and James Dobson, regrouped in Arlington, Virginia. Worried they were losing ground, the group focused on three issues: abortion, gay marriage and gun rights. Polling showed that the topic where they could get the most traction was same-sex marriage.³⁹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote39sym)

James Dobson, nearing 70, was slowing down, and he was ready to bring in some new blood. The landscape had changed. The Family Research Council’s new visibility as a Washington lobbying force could undermine the non-profit status of Focus on the Family’s multi-million-dollar operations. In 1992 he separated the two organizations again, creating an independent board that shared three members, including Dobson himself.⁴⁰(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote40sym)

To direct the new FRC in 2003, he turned to Mike Pence’s friend from Louisiana, Tony Perkins: fresh-faced and honey-voiced at 40, with a Southern variant of Pence’s “aw-shucks” manner. Perkins left his tiny hometown of Cleveland, Oklahoma to serve in the Marine Corps. He moved to Baton Rouge, where he joined the police force, then got a job reporting for the television station run by Woody Jenkins, the founding executive director of the CNP. Along the way he attended Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University (though he didn’t graduate until he was nearly 30).

In 1995 Perkins ran successfully for the Louisiana state legislature and was reelected four years later. The CNP’s Richard Viguerie was one of his fundraisers.⁴¹(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote41sym) Perkins also managed the unsuccessful Senate campaign of former CNP director Woody Jenkins. There were bumps along the way. A 1999 federal investigation revealed that Perkins, on behalf of the Jenkins campaign, had contracted the services of a media company partially owned by Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Perkins later reported that he was “profoundly grieved” to learn of the association.⁴²(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote42sym) In 2001 Perkins gave a speech to the Baton Rouge chapter of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (sometimes called the “Uptown Klan”).⁴³(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote43sym) Dobson was unconcerned by the negative press. Such events set a pattern that would be played out in the future. The Council for National Policy and its affiliates would be revealed to associate with unsavory characters, and they would be shocked that such nice folk could harbor such nasty ideology.

As soon as Perkins was hired by the Family Research Council, he launched a new radio program, broadcast on Bott Radio and the American Family Radio network. In the past, the Family Research Council had tried to maintain good relations with Democrats, but “Washington Watch” was unabashedly political, celebrating conservative Republicans and excoriating their Democratic opponents. For all practical purposes, the CNP had anointed the Family Research Council as its public lobbying and organizational front.

Nonetheless, the IRS assigned tax-exempt, 501(c)3 status to both the Family Research Council and American Family Radio—in keeping with the FRC’s stated mission to advance “faith, family and freedom in government and culture from a Christian worldview,” and the American Family Radio’s calling as an “educational organization” devoted to “spiritual development.”⁴⁴(https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote44sym)

:{In recent years, the CNP media affiliates have continued to modernize and proliferate. It’s difficult to say exactly how many there are, or to track all the platforms where they appear. Salem Media, rebranded as the Salem Media Group, has acquired various digital platforms, including TownHall, RedState, and PJ Media.

The Daily Caller, co-founded by CNP member Neil Patel and Tucker Carlson, lists Clarence Thomas’s wife Virginia (another CNP member) as a “special correspondent,” and Tony Perkins makes frequent appearances on its video channel “American Voices.”

CNSNews (originally the Cybercast News Service) was founded by CNP executive committee member Brent Bozell III in 1998 as a division of his Media Research Center. Like many of the other organizations mentioned, MRC is designated a tax-exempt “non-partisan” 501(c)3 organization, despite its unrelenting stream of partisan content.

The movement has been focusing on developing social media platforms, especially since Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot. On May 14 the Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump may launch his own platform on July 4, although it’s unclear what form it might take.Tony Perkins has endorsed a relatively new social media platform called Gab, which has been widely reported for providing a haven for QAnon supporters and other extremists.

Other contenders, such as Parler and Frank (launched by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell) also vie for attention. The CNP has tried to develop its own “celebrity spokespersons” to cultivate specific target audiences, such as CNP member Charlie Kirk, who has his own YouTube channel and a radio program on Salem Media targeting youth. CNP member Alveda King (MLK’s niece) is prominently featured on Salem’s TownHall as an African-American opponent to HR1 and voting rights initiatives.

In the distorted mirror of this media system, the violent storming of the Capitol was a “tourist event,” and the illegal efforts to overturn the electoral results were exercises in “election integrity. Tragically, these media initiatives have not limited themselves to political misinformation; they have also been disseminating deadly misinformation about Covid for over a year, and sowing manufactured doubt about the safety of vaccines.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The battle against Covid may have peaked, but millions of Americans are still vulnerable. The 2022 midterms will determine the fate of the House and the Senate, and in many ways, the future of the nation. These information systems create a growing chasm in America. Thanks in large part to their efforts, Americans are more sharply divided than they have been in our lifetimes — and as Abraham Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Endnotes

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Richard Bott

Senior Vice President Finance - Corporate US Operations at CACI International Inc

Germantown, Maryland, United States99 connections

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About

Over 30 years of industry experience as a senior financial executive for several LM operating companies ranging in size from $100M to $5B, and currently serving as the Senior Vice President - Corporate US Operations CACI International. Primary expertise: financial and strategic planning, program planning and control, cash management, and contract administration. Related experience in proposal preparation and negotiation, indirect rate management, government compliance, facilities and supply chain management. Domestic / International / Classified and Unclassified program experience.

Experience

CACI International Inc Graphic

Senior Vice President Finance - Corporate US Operations

CACI International Inc

Apr 2015 - Present7 years 4 months

Arlington Virginia

Senior finance executive for CACI US Operations supporting CACI COO. Strategic Planning and operational responsibility for a $3.7B portfolio which includes all major federal agencies. Key executive team member for all merger and acquisition strategies.

Lockheed Martin IS&GS - Civil Graphic

VP & CFO

Lockheed Martin IS&GS - Civil

Jan 2009 - Apr 20156 years 4 months

Senior finance executive responsible for all business operations activities for the IS&S - Civil business. Portfolio includes approximately 1000 contracts, over 12,000 employees, and $4B in annual sales. Customer base includes all major Civil agencies of the Federal government along with several international programs. Entrusted with the management and development of over 600 employees located in over 190 sites both in the U.S. and abroad.

Lockheed Martin - IS&GS Graphic

VP - Facilities & Operations

Lockheed Martin - IS&GS

Apr 2007 - Jan 20091 year 10 months

Senior executive responsible for operations, facilities, ESH and capital planning activities for an $11B business. Portfolio includes over 12M square feet of multi purpose facilities located across the globe managed by a professional staff of over 500 employees.

Lockheed Martin - IS&S Graphic

VP Program Finance

Lockheed Martin - IS&S

Jan 2004 - Apr 20073 years 4 months

Senior finance executive responsible for all program activities for the IS&S business segment. Portfolio includes approximately 1000 contracts and $5B in annual sales. Responsible for Program Planning & Control, Estimating, business strategies as well as process and tool enhancements. Entrusted with the management and development of over 700 employees located in 13 sites across the U.S.

Lockheed Martin - M&DS

1 year 7 months

VP Bus Operations

Jul 2003 - Jan 20047 months

Senior executive responsible for all activities pertaining to finance, program control, internal control, procurement, contracts and process improvement. Responsible for over 600 employees with operations across the U.S. All financial metrics exceeded in 2003 with record performance in orders, award fees, and margins. Awarded highest possible company score by the corporation

Controller

Jul 2002 - Jul 20031 year 1 month

Controller for LM-M&DS responsible for Financial Planning and Analysis, Forward Pricing Rates and Program Accounting including the preparation, negotiation and reporting of operating plans and indirect budgets. Primary government and external interface for all audit activities.

Lockheed Martin - Tactical Defense Systems Graphic

VP - Finance

Lockheed Martin - Tactical Defense Systems

Jan 1998 - Jul 20024 years 7 months

Senior Executive responsible for all activities pertaining to accounting, financial planning and control, contracts and procurement. Successfully transitioned LM-TDS into LM-M&DS with a customer focused strategic plan and revised organizational alignment that doubled orders between 2000 and 2001. LM M&DS-RS employs over 500 people and specializes in end to end intelligence systems with particular expertise in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), digital signal processing, and data…

Lockheed Martin - Command & Control Graphic

VP - Finance

Lockheed Martin - Command & Control

Jan 1996 - Jan 19982 years 1 month

Senior Executive responsible for all activities pertaining to finance, program control, accounting, internal control, facilities, security, contracts and procurement. Executive team leader responsible for the integration of LM C&C into LM-Mission Systems. Successfully completed transition to common financial systems, process media, business rhythms, and operating culture.

Education

West Coast University

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West Coast University

MBABusiness Administration

1990 - 1992

California State University-Long Beach - College of Business

California State University-Long Beach - College of Business Graphic

California State University-Long Beach - College of Business

BA- FinanceInternational Finance

1977 - 1980

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“Richard was my CFO at Lockheed and was outstanding. He understood the total company and was able therefore to address issues and problems from a full business prospective. He was well liked by all my staff as well as his team. I would fully recommend Richard as a CFO in any size operation. He would be a tremendous addition to any organization.”

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