The War On News

A record of government actions against journalism and fact-based reporting, from the first press laws to today

Claim

Claim 856

Senator McCarthy said a way to spread material favoring Communism would be to misleadingly claim to have deserted the party and then use control of a newspaper to "attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism," according to Reason magazine.

Published 2026-09-26. Last reviewed 2026-09-26. 1 source.

Statement
Senator McCarthy said a way to spread material favoring Communism would be to misleadingly claim to have deserted the party and then use control of a newspaper to "attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism," according to Reason magazine.
Field
stated_justification
Value
McCarthy's theory of covert Communist messaging
About
incident 1953-us-wechsler-mccarthy-subpoena
Source
McCarthy and His Friends (Reason)
Publisher
McCarthy and His Friends (Reason)
Method
outlet report
Checked
2026-09-26
Confidence
medium
Status
current
Source date
2008-02-14

Quotation from the source

would be to claim that we deserted the party and, if we got in control of the paper, use that paper to attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism.