Seventy-five years after 'The War of the Worlds'

Year 2013 commemorates 75^th anniversary of Welles’ ‘The War of the Worlds’ broadcast

New York Times/ Oct. 31, 1938/ pg. 1

By Nick McCown

“The War of the Worlds” radio drama was adapted from H. G. Wells’ novel by the same name. It was broadcast over Columbia Broadcasting System radio network on Oct. 30, 1938 as part of The Mercury Theater on the Air radio drama series. Starring its script writer Orson Welles, a soon-to-be actor and filmmaker, the broadcast simulated an alien invasion in the northeast United States in such a way that it duped many Americans into believing their country and possibly the world was in grave danger. Many panicked, contacting local police or fleeing their homes for safer ground. The day after the broadcast, it received much attention in the news, with many major newspapers running front-page stories of the event.

 

Orson Welles is confronted by the media on Oct. 31, the day after ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast      Photo courtesy of AP images

The New York Times headline for Oct. 31, 1938,  ran, “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact.” The article itself is very wordy. It is longer than any news article I have read. It goes into detail about the events of the broadcast and the many different instances of hysteria from different parts of the U.S. The piece is interspersed with accounts of frightened citizens from New Jersey, where the alleged invasion took place, all the way to North Carolina and Florida. The Associated Press bureau in Kansas City was asked about the invasion by readers from as far away as Los Angeles. In a lengthy fashion, the article aggregates events of panic and flooded police phone lines from all parts of the U.S., giving us full-spectrum coverage of this one fictional, 60 minute radio segment’s impact. This article, albeit informative, is not written in the concise style of contemporary newswriting. A story covering an event of this magnitude today would be at the least chopped in half. With online news media, the coverage might be split into a few separate stories, chronicling the development of the story as events unfold.

Photo courtesy of AP Images: Welles delivering his ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast, Oct 30, 1938

Aside from being lengthy and all-encompassing, the rhetoric in this article is sensational. The 40-word lead begins with, “A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners throughout the nation” and ends mentioning the belief of citizens that the “Martians (were) spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York.” Words like these are almost never used in modern news coverage. News reporters now will omit these and stick to basic, neutral words, letting the facts tell the story. The difference in style actually reflects the audience’s gullible nature. Some listeners could not differentiate a dramatized newscast from actual news coverage of the day. “The War of the Worlds” broadcast was probably very convincing, but audiences today would be more attuned to noticing Welles’ subtle dramatics because of the succinct news writing style they are used to.

Original NY Times article Oct. 31, 1938