The Most Influential Christian Talk Radio Network You've Probably Never Heard of
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In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the \\u201cstolen election\\u201d while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind \\u2014 on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn\'t do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections.\\xa0This week, reporter Katie Thornton introduces us to\\xa0the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country \\u2013 and perhaps the most influential media company you\\u2019ve never heard of.\\xa0Thornton\\xa0traces the company\\u2019s\\xa0rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s\\xa0to the present day \\u2014 a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right.\\xa0
\\nThis episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided\\xa0Dial.\\xa0You can listen to the full series\\xa0here.\\xa0\\n\\nThe Divided Dial is\\xa0reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright\\xa0Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on\\xa0Instagram\\xa0or on her\\xa0website.\\xa0The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media\'s executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by\\xa0Michael Brennan.\\xa0With support from the\\xa0Fund for Investigative Journalism.'