Introduction: Jesse Helm's politics of pious incitement -- "There is another way": free enterprise, the mainstream media, and southern realignment in the 1950s -- "The voice of free enterprise": a conservative commentator and news director -- "An uncommon number of moral degenerates": the conservative alternative and the fairness doctrine -- Backlash: the great society, Vietnam, and conservative solutions -- Turning off turn-on: Helms as a TV executive in the 1960s -- The dawn of a conservative era: gaining power, 1968 to 1972 -- Epilogue: mainstreaming the fringe.
Summary
An exploration of how Jesse Helms pioneered the attack on the liberal media while building a new form of southern conservativism, centering on his time as executive vice president of WRAL-TV in Raleigh.