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for
as a consultant
journalists and potential employers. Maynard was soon hired MCCARTHY, JOSEPH
affirmative action with the Gannett Co.
In 1979 Gannett appointed him editor of the Oakland Tribune. In 1983 May-
nard purchased the newspaper and became the first African American to have
a controlling interest in a city daily with general circulation. Moreover, he was
the first big city editor in recent times to buy the newspaper for which he
worked. Gannett financed the purchase. In 1985 the newspaper's circulation
surpassed 150,000, but it suffered from a continuing decrease in display adver-
tising, and Maynard was diagnosed with prostate cancer. As a result, he sold
the newspaper to the Alameda Newspaper Group in 1992. He died of cancer in
August 1993 at the age of 56.
SOURCE: Current Biography Yearbook, 1993.
Will Norton
MCCARTHY, JOSEPH (1908-1957). The junior senator from Wisconsin
turned U.S. politics upside down in a speech on February 9, 1950, to a small
group in Wheeling, West Virginia. He claimed he had a list of 205 communists
working in the Department of State, but his numbers almost immediately
changed. In the end, McCarthy provided scant specifics of his charges—few
names and even less proof. But the allegation led to several years of communist
"witch-hunts" at all levels of government, a "red scare" that would come to
bear his name: "McCarthyism." Suspected communists lost their jobs, even if
their ties to the Communist Party were tenuous and decades old. Guilt by as-
sociation became the order of the day. Workers in the entertainment industry
were especially targeted, and many of them had their careers ruined by being
"blacklisted." Loyalty oaths and loyalty review boards became a requirement
for public service. The press played a key role in McCarthy's rise as it eagerly
reported his allegations but failed to investigate whether there was any substance
to them. The McCarthy phenomenon was also fueled by the infant medium of
television, which often allowed him to take his charges directly to the public.
But television also played a part in McCarthy's demise. Edward R. Murrow, in
one of the first television newsmagazine shows, See It Now, took McCarthy to
task for his smear tactics. McCarthy was given the opportunity to reply by CBS,
and he was an implausible buffoon in his response. McCarthy continued to lose
credibility until censured by the Senate on December 2, 1954, for improper
conduct. He became increasingly alcoholic and died three years later, but he left
a legacy. The word "McCarthyism" is still in our political vocabulary as a
description of guilt-by-association smearing of a political opponent.
SOURCES: Albert Fried, McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare, 1997; Thomas
Rosteck, See It Now Confronts McCarthyism, 1994; Jim Tuck, McCarthyism and New
York's Hearst Press, 1995.
Marc Edge