It all began with William F. Buckley, Jr. It is worth noting that 2025 marks the centenary of Buckley’s birth.
In 1955, the young Mr. Buckley founded National Review magazine. Famously, he is noted for saying this: “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
What could not be seen in 1955 was that Buckley was opening the floodgates on what would come to be known as conservative media. Just a short recall will note that a mere dozen years later, in 1967, The American Spectator was created by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., then a young student at the University of Indiana. (And the Spectator, full disclosure, is where I also hang my journalistic hat.)
On into the future came the birth of talk radio and the massive success that came to Mr. Talk Radio himself, Rush Limbaugh. In today’s America it would be hard to find a city that does not boast of their own version of a local talk radio show. In the mid-ninety’s media mogul Rupert Murdoch delivered up Fox News, to the red faced furies of liberals who believed liberals were the only ones who should and could dominate the media. Only this week has Newsmax (where, full disclosure, I am a contributor, and NewsBusters colleagues Tim Graham and Curtis Houck frequently appear) evidenced its own success, with founder Chris Ruddy ringing the opening bell on Wall Street to signal Newsmax’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
This being the 21st century, the world of podcasts and Internet websites blossomed, with countless shows and sites featuring conservative hosts or staff. (Like the site you are reading right now, produced by those wizards of smart here at the Media Research Center).
The question? What to make of all this tidal wave of conservative media?
The answer, one suspects, is fairly simple. America always had millions of conservatives in its midst. But alas, conservatism bubbled up only on occasion in public discourse because, for whatever reason, the media was in the hands of liberals. And to be accepted into the club that was American liberalism, one simply could not allow horrendous revelations that, well, yes, in 1964 you voted for Barry Goldwater for President. Or that four years after that you quietly cast your vote for Richard Nixon. And later for Reagan. Not for nothing did Nixon speak of what he called “the silent majority.”
But throughout, conservatives and conservatism were always there. It simply took the courage - which Buckley possessed in considerable measure - to go public with a defiantly conservative media outlet. He was not mumbling his conservative views to himself in the darkness.
Buckley wrote books and then began publishing his magazine. Eventually he morphed into a television star -- the anchor of Firing Line -- where his conservatism and sharp wit were on considerable display in, of all places, PBS. Given the congressional testimony of today’s PBS boss the other day, one would be justified in thinking that were Buckley around today they would never in a million years have agreed to air his show. Instead, we have a Democrat-pleasing bastardization of Firing Line, where Rush Limbaugh is demonized for ruining Christianity with his venom.
The point here, which the Newsmax listing this week on the New York Stock Exchange made crystal clear, is that conservative media is here to stay. It is succeeding. And looking back at those who played such an enormous role in creating it -- the names like Buckley, Tyrrell, Limbaugh, the Murdochs and now Chris Ruddy -- it is to realize that while they were and are the visible creators, it is, to use Nixon’s phrase, America’s Great Silent Majority that is really responsible for conservative media's success. For it is they who read the magazines, listen to talk radio and podcasts,, watch Fox, Newsmax, and doubtless other conservative outlets.
It is, in short, the American people who have created the conservative media.
They have been out there all along, and, beginning with Bill Buckley and his magazine, they have learned to make themselves heard.
And they are not about to be quiet.
