Making Media Safe for Corporate Power: Market Libertarian Discourse in the 1940s and Beyond (In Anthony Nadler and A.J. Bauer (Eds.) News on the Right: Studying Conservative News Cultures, New York: Oxford University Press, 106-122.) Victor Pickard “American radio today is the product of business!” — J. Harold Ryan, former president of the National Association of Broadcasters, speaking to a group of Kiwanians in 1946 Pro-market discourses played a significant role in framing media policy debates in the 1940s. As a “corporate libertarian” ideological project crystallized during the immediate postwar years, news media (especially broadcasting) became defined primarily as a commodity, not a public service, and public interest regulations became increasingly de-legitimized. In addition to various forms of red-baiting that radically shifted regulatory paradigms, notions of “free radio” and other libertarian tropes transformed the discursive landscape from the New Deal’s social democratic orientation to one that was overtly hostile toward affirmative policy interventions. This chapter considers both the specific role that corporate propaganda played in shaping media policy in the 1940s, and the broader ideological struggle that such propaganda reflected. Ideological battles in the 1940s helped define core ideas in U.S. political discourse from ‘freedom,’ the ‘First Amendment,’ to the role of commerce and consumption in everyday life. Ultimately, these principles and relationships were established in ways that benefited corporate power, leaving a lasting imprint on many of the United States’ core systems, especially its media system. This chapter aims to elucidate the central role that corporate libertarians played in producing the conditions that allowed the modern conservative movement to thrive. This structural analysis — one that draws attention to various connections or resonances between