Radio: Campaigning

Time was when a course in oratory was standard preparation for a political career. Today a shrewd campaigner takes lessons in radio technique. But radio campaigning is a young art, ripe for experiments, knotty with problems. Last week New York’s ding-dong gubernatorial race produced one of each.

The experiment: When Governor Herbert Lehman spoke from Albany over Station WOR (Newark), Announcer Richard Brooks stood by, slipped murmured interpolations into the microphone. As though the Governor were talking some foreign language the listeners could not understand. Announcer Brooks used intervals of applause to repeat and interpret sections of the speech. Not only did he report a sip of water the speaker took, but he also declared repeatedly that his candidate had scored heavily on Republican Opponent Thomas E. Dewey. Listeners capable of understanding the speech without translation protested. Others kicked about the announcer’s editorializing. The Brooks murmuring was promptly silenced.

The problem: Does a candidate who takes the customary air time of a popular program draw to himself the attention or the hostility of the program’s audience? Candidate Dewey* last week bought on Station WJZ (Manhattan) 30 minutes of Tuesday evening time, half of which usually goes to the Information Please program. Although he was still talking when his time was up, WJZ cut him off to pick up the second half of Information Please, on which Harpo Marx was a noisily silent guest juror,† By telephone Information Please fans berated NBC for giving part of the program’s time to Candidate Dewey.

Dewey fans slated the station for not letting their candidate finish. The telephone score: For Information Please, 920. For Dewey, 8.

* Because his radio style was criticized by Republican Herbert C. Hoover, who himself is no great radiorator, Republican Thomas E. Dewey goes to New York University’s Speech Teacher Richard C. Rorden to brush up his microphone technique, reported “Daily Washington Merry-go-Round’s” Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen. A baritone before he was a politician, Candidate Dewey is generally regarded as a professionally polished, dramatic broadcaster.

† Faithful to his tradition, he did not speak for the microphone but answered questions by whistling and pantomime.