By the 1940s, Americans were receiving much of their news from radio. Despite a 1934 agreement between the print and radio media that radio news would be limited (and that those reciting the news on the radio were to be called commentators and not reporters), radio became key for transmitting the news. The Hindenberg disaster and the encroaching war in Europe and Asia became radiophonic experiences. The obvious advantage of radio over print was immediacy, while a secondary advantage lay in the dramatics of the voice.

Commentators could transmit news as it was occurring live to the audience, bringing the event into the home as eyewitnesses who spoke with an audible connection to it. With the Second World War, broadcast journalism was catapulted into a crucial position, and radio dramas were often interrupted by news of the war. It was this ability to interrupt programming that made network executives realize there was enough news to fill up a station’s entire day.

Today there are radio stations that broadcast news 24 hours a day The format is fastchanging with a fast-talking DJ. It is repetitive, with roundups and headlines—a talking newspaper, as station executives called the format when it began in the 1960s. The news may vary slightly from hour to hour, but the structure of each hour is the same, which again is like the lay-out and pagination of a newspaper. These talking newspapers have become a mainstay among radio stations on the AM dial, operating in most major cities.

The Westinghouse network was one of the forerunners of this format, which continues to be successful four decades later, perhaps because America’s ability to produce news has continued to accelerate.