Cross Talk: Season 3, Episode 5

"On War of the Worlds - On World Audio Drama Day" From October 30, 2019.  World Audio Drama day is recognized on the anniversary of the October 30, 1938 live broadcast over CBS Radio Network affiliates of the Mercury Theatre adaptation of The War of the Worlds, written by H.G. Wells 40 years earlier.  Continuing my case from Season 1, Episodes 7 and 8 from October 2018, this episode maintains the extent of any "panic" from the show was overstated by the lead researcher, and reporting in an unfair and unbalanced way by a hostile print media.  Those phenomena have led some teachers and professors over the decades to perpetuate myths against radio. Makes fair dealing use of bits from War of the Worlds (1938), The Fall of the City (1937), CBS Radio News (1938), BBC Radio News (1938). Includes look at newspaper reporting mentioning CFRB Toronto. Reference to The Invasion from Mars: A study in the psychology of panic by Hadley Cantrill (1940) and Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the World and the Art of Fake News by A. Brad Schwartz (2015). For more on the reaction, research, and the dozens of signs the show was obviously fiction, please check Season 1, Episodes 7 and 8.