Mr. CD circa 1955, drawn by Al Capp
Click Image above to download the Al Capp-drawn 'Mr. Civil Defense Tells About Natural Disasters' from 1956
Both the Rocky Mountain Radio Council and Jack Weir Lewis were multiple recipients of the Peabody award for Radio in the years following World War II
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Background
The aftermath of World War II found the newly created Federal Civil Defense Administration far from winding down. Quite the contrary. The advent of the age of the Atomic Bomb soon saw Soviet Russia creating its own atomic weapons. The onset of the Cold War found America's Civil Defense preparations and initiatives scaling up as never before.
As throughout the World War II years, Radio tended to dominate as the medium of choice in getting out the various messages, warnings, and informational documentaries distributed at the behest of the Federal Civil Defense Administration and its many ad hoc and quasi-governmental arms and organizations. In addition to those public information and Civil Defense broadcasts produced by the networks in the public interest, several enterprising foundations and private groups began to produce highly informative productions explaining the priorities, cautions and impact of the dawn of the age of atomic warfare.
Well produced and engineered World War II and Cold War Radio programming were a staple over network Radio. A representative sampling follows:
While the above list is by no means all-inclusive, it represents some of the finer, well produced programming presented in the public interest. The list also represents several repeat Peabody Award winning productions. While the World War II years were clearly stressful for the entire nation, the events of World War II presented a finite, discernable crisis with definable, attainable goals. The Cold War Era presented an arguably more visceral threat, and a source of even greater public anxiety. Public ignorance of the broader nature and immediacy of the threat of nuclear warfare demanded even broader education as to the threat and its potential consequences.
From the May 7, 1950 edition of the Lima News:
Peabody Winner Believes Educators
Must Learn Showmanship To Survive
COLUMBUS, May 6— (AP)—Last year's winner of the Peabody award for service to education said today that educators must learn showmanship to survive in radio.
"Showmanship is as high an art as teaching and only a combination of the two will reach the people who need to be taught," said Jack Weir Lewis, acting director of the Rocky Mountain Radio council.
Lewis, speaking to a session of the 20th Ohio State university Institute for Education by Radio, said:
"Education as well as radio is a highly competitive business and no educator can possibly survive if he does not learn audience likes and dislikes from the successful commercial programs on the air."
* * *
LEWIS continued:
"The (Rocky Mountain) Radio council uses professors to further the cause of education only when those professors have become humanized and effective thru a comprehension of the needs of :he common people.
"Likewise, the council and its educational members do not hesitate to employ fictional, dramatized detectives operating within a mystery format if such will do the necessary job."
The Rocky Mountain council, said Lewis, has found in 10 years of work that an effective job of educational, broadcasting both for children and adults can be achieved "as readily if not more so thru the use of commercial stations as opposed to educational outlets, and with much less outlay of money.
* * *
THE EDUCATIONAL stations, said Lewis, are limited to exploiting the resources of only the group which supports them, whereas every educational organization with something to offer the people can be served thru using commercial channels.
Edward L. Bernays of New York university, a public opinion analyst, offered the institute a list of the subjects he believes the nation's radio will talk about for the next six months, in order o£ their importance:
Cold war with USSR, communism in United States, relations between United States management and labor; civil rights; U. S.-relations with other countries; United Nations; problems of war and peace; social security and social responsibility of
American business, and American politics.
* * *
MARTHA MAY Boyer, faculty adviser to radio station KCLC, Lindenwood college, St. Charles, Mo., agreed in the main with speaker Lewis, altho speaking generally of production problems of campus radio outlets.
"It is neither coincidence nor conscious imitation if college programming follows commercial programming rather closely," said Miss Boyer.
"The college radio station need offer no apologies for this fact—if psychologists have discovered a more effective way of determining public likes and disikes, I haven't heard about it."
Miss Boyer called on college stations to pioneer in new ideas and new techniques.
Rocky Mountain Radio Council Airs This Is Civil Defense
From the December 11, 1955 edition of the Beatrice (Nebraska) Daily Sun:
Civil Defense
Goes On Air
Programs reveal
how workers aid
during emergency
A new series of civil defense radio programs is being beamed into homes across the nation by the 561-station Mutual Broadcasting System.
In cooperation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration, Mutual is broadcasting the series of 13 weekly 15-minute transcribed shows on Tuesday at 9:15 p.m. (New York time). The series was recorded by the Rocky Mountain Radio Council under the title "This Is Civil Defense."
THE SERIES relates how civil defense workers serve in such emergencies as natural disasters, train wrecks or plane crashes. It also explains such phases of civil defense work as the training of women volunteers, the warden service, evacuation, fallout and the preparationof shelters and reception areas.
The purpose of this series is to inform the public of the vital part CD plays in their everyday lives as well as preparing them for survival against enemy attack.
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RadioGOLDINdex, Hickerson Guide.
Notes on Provenances:
The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.
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