Why did people believe the War of the Worlds radio broadcast?

Answer is in the photo. I can't attach it here, but I've uploaded it to a file hosting. link below! Good Luck!

cutt.ly/Kzv78uJ

We interrupt this blog to bring you a special bulletin:

Martians have invaded New Jersey!

OK, as far as we know that hasn't happened.

But we wanted to issue that faux alert because 75 years ago tonight, as our friend Korva Coleman pointed out on the NPR Newscast, Orson Welles and his troupe of radio actors interrupted the Columbia Broadcasting System's programming to "report" that our planet had been invaded.

Ever since then, it's been accepted as fact that the broadcast scared the dickens out of many Americans.

Morning Edition, for instance, reported in 2005 that "listeners panicked, thinking the story was real." Many supposedly jumped in their cars to flee the area of the "invasion."

Just this past weekend, our colleagues at Radiolab devoted their very first live hour to a "deep dive into one of the most controversial moments in broadcasting history: Orson Welles' 1938 radio play about Martians invading New Jersey."

According to Radiolab, about 12 million people were listening when Welles' broadcast came on the air and "about 1 in every 12 ... thought it was true and ... some percentage of that 1 million people ran out of their homes."

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"That constitutes a major freakout," Radiolab says.

Orson Welles delivering a radio broadcast in 1938, the same year he aired his War of the Worlds fake news program.

/AP

Well, Slate has a different opinion. "The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast," it concludes. According to Slate:

"Far fewer people heard the broadcast — and fewer still panicked — than most people believe today. How do we know? The night the program aired, the C.E. Hooper ratings service telephoned 5,000 households for its national ratings survey. 'To what program are you listening?' the service asked respondents. Only 2 percent answered a radio 'play' or 'the Orson Welles program,' or something similar indicating CBS. None said a 'news broadcast,' according to a summary published in Broadcasting. In other words, 98 percent of those surveyed were listening to something else, or nothing at all, on Oct. 30, 1938. This miniscule rating is not surprising. Welles' program was scheduled against one of the most popular national programs at the time — ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's Chase and Sanborn Hour, a comedy-variety show."

Slate also argues that there's no data to support the idea that many radio listeners heard about the broadcast and tuned in during it. And it points out that "several important CBS affiliates (including Boston's WEEI) pre-empted Welles' broadcast in favor of local commercial programming, further shrinking its audience."

So how did the story of the "panic" grow over the years? Slate blames newspapers, which allegedly "seized the opportunity presented by Welles' program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted."

Explanation:

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)