Fred James Cook (March 8, 1911 – April 4, 2003) was an American investigative journalist , author and historian who has been published extensively in The Nation , the Asbury Park Press and The New York Times . He wrote from a contemporary perspective about the Hindenburg disaster , Alger Hiss , the Cuban Missile Crisis , Barry Goldwater , the Watergate scandal and numerous other political issues and current events. He has also written about historic events such as the American Revolutionary War , P.T. Barnum , the Pinkertons and Theodore Roosevelt .
29-407: WLYH may refer to: WLYH (TV) , a television station licensed to serve Red Lion, York County, Pennsylvania WNUZ-LP , a low-power radio station (92.9 FM) licensed to serve Gap, Pennsylvania, United States, which held the call sign WLYH-LP in 2017 WXBU , a television station (channel 23/virtual 15) licensed to serve Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which held
58-661: A channel sharing agreement with Harrisburg -licensed ABC affiliate WHTM-TV (channel 27), the two stations transmit using WHTM-TV's spectrum from an antenna on a ridge north of I-81 along the Cumberland – Perry county line. The channel 49 allocation in the Susquehanna Valley region was previously occupied by WNOW-TV, which was based in York and was originally affiliated with the DuMont Television Network (and later
87-743: A landmark case that led the United States Supreme Court in 1969 to uphold the fairness doctrine . He is the author of 45 books and a winner of the Heywood Broun Award for exposing social injustice. Cook was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey , and grew up in a house on Bay Avenue near the border with Bay Head . On his mother's side, he was descended from an old New Jersey family, the Comptons. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1932. Cook began his career in journalism first as
116-581: A rewrite man and then as a reporter for the Asbury Park Press . He later wrote for the New York World-Telegram , focusing on crime reporting. He uncovered the confession of John Francis Roche in the murder case of Navy sailor Edward S. Bates, which freed Paul A. Pfeffer, who had been convicted of the murder. While editor of the weekly New Jersey Courier in Lakewood, New Jersey , he covered
145-554: A Soviet spy while working for the US State Department . Cook expanded the article into a book entitled, The Unfinished Story of Alger Hiss (Morrow, 1957) and to the end of his life continued to maintain that Hiss had been innocent. In an interview he gave at the age of 89 Cook observed: And as a matter of fact, I don't think the book was ever challenged. If I had made some grievous error, they would have been down on my head right away, but it didn't happen. That said to me that I
174-542: A bribe—well-paid government jobs for the two reporters' wives—to stop investigating the city's slum clearance program in 1956. But when Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan hauled him in for questioning, Gleason back-pedaled, saying he had "exaggerated" the story "because I was exuberant and carried away." At that point, the World-Telegram fired him. Cook claimed that he'd reported the alleged bribe attempt to his superiors, but his city editor denied ever hearing about
203-640: A religious independent station, carrying programs from various televangelists . It was the only over-the-air source of non-network programming in the area until WPMT (channel 43) relaunched as an independent in 1983. On August 17, 2009, WGCB-TV began carrying classic television series daily from 3 to 10 p.m. In 2012, WGCB-TV began carrying select programs from the classic television network MeTV , which also began to be carried on digital subchannel 49.2. On September 19, 2012, NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster NRJ Radio ) announced its intent to purchase WGCB-TV from Red Lion Television for $ 9 million;
232-609: A series of events which in the end led to the Supreme Court decision in what is known as the Red Lion case : After the book appeared, Cook was attacked by conservative evangelist Billy James Hargis on his daily Christian Crusade radio broadcast, on WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania . Hargis also appeared to be angry about an article Cook wrote called "Hate Clubs of the Air" that referenced him in
261-578: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages WLYH (TV) WLYH (channel 49) is a religious independent television station licensed to Red Lion, Pennsylvania , United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region. Owned by Sonshine Family Television, it is a sister station to Bethlehem -based flagship WBPH-TV (channel 60). WLYH's studios are located on Windsor Road in Red Lion. Through
290-588: The 1979 oil crisis for The Washington Post that provoked a response from a senior director at the American Petroleum Institute . He has also written about the American Revolutionary War and the La Amistad slave ship rebellion for American Heritage magazine. In 1968, Cook signed the " Writers and Editors War Tax Protest " pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against
319-488: The 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction and the station was to cease broadcasting on its current digital channel 90 days after it received payment from the FCC. The station has a channel-sharing agreement with ABC affiliate WHTM-TV . Ironically, WHTM is currently owned by the former WLYH-TV's former owner Nexstar Media Group . Fred J. Cook In 1967, Cook successfully sued the religious broadcaster WGCB for maligning him in
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#1733140426149348-821: The NTA Film Network ). It could not compete with WGAL-TV (channel 8) and eventually went off the air on June 1, 1958. WLYH first signed on the air on April 28, 1979, as WGCB-TV. It was the first completely new station to sign on in South Central Pennsylvania in 26 years. It was founded by John Harden Norris, an engineer for Sinclair Oil and Refining Company , who left his position and joined his father to establish Red Lion Broadcasting in 1950, which also owned WGCB radio (1440 AM, now WGLD , and 96.1 FM, now WSOX ; both now owned by Cumulus Media ). The Norrises signed on WGCB (AM) (standing for "the World for God, Christ and
377-504: The Bible") in 1950, followed by WGCB-FM in 1958. In 1962, Norris launched short-wave radio station WINB (originally standing for "World In Need of the Bible", now for "World International Broadcasters"), now the oldest commercial shortwave station in the United States (although the original transmitter failed in 1995, and it took until 1997 to resume full-power broadcasts). At the time, Norris
406-418: The FCC on December 8, 2017. In January 2019, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania –based Sonshine Family Television entered into a local marketing agreement to operate channel 49; the station's call sign was changed to WLYH, the former callsign for WXBU . The few secular shows that remain on the station are FCC-mandated educational and informational programs for children on Saturday mornings. On January 17, 2019, it
435-471: The Fairness Doctrine, which prohibits broadcasters from using their monopoly on a broadcast frequency to monopolize discussion on controversial issues. Norris died on September 28, 2008, at the age of 82. The FCC granted a change in control for WGCB-TV on November 5, 2008, to the estate of John H. Norris. DirecTV ceased carriage of WGCB on January 1 , 2009. For much of WGCB-TV's history, it operated as
464-624: The Nation . Cook sued, arguing that under the FCC's Fairness Doctrine he was entitled to a right of reply . He won the case, but Red Lion Broadcasting challenged the constitutionality of the doctrine, and their case against the FCC went to the Supreme Court in 1969. The Court ruled unanimously that the Fairness Doctrine was constitutional. Cook's first wife Julia died from complications from taking blood-thinners after open-heart surgery in 1974. He wrote
493-571: The Title I scandals of the 1950s" were an important source to Robert Caro 's famous biography of Robert Moses , The Power Broker . In chapter two of his 1984 autobiography, "Maverick: Fifty Years of Investigative Reporting," Cook said his freelance reporting on the William Remington espionage case in the late 1950s for Saga, a now-defunct men's magazine, "was a watershed experience" that opened "a much more critical and analytical eye" on injustice at
522-602: The Vietnam War. Awards he has received include the Heywood Broun Award and the Page One Award from the Newspaper Guild of New York multiple times. Cook had written four articles for The Nation when editor Carey McWilliams asked him to write an article about the perjury case of Alger Hiss . Cook did not want to do the article, thinking Hiss was "guilty as hell." After two more requests by McWilliams for Cook to do
551-410: The article, McWilliams said, "Look, I have a proposition to make you. I know how you feel about the case, but I've talked to a lot of people who I trust. They say if anybody looked hard at the evidence they'd have a different opinion. You're known as a fact man. Will you do this for me? No obligation. Will you at least look at the facts?" Cook decided that, as a good journalist, he was obligated to look at
580-467: The bribe. Cook asserted in his autobiography that Gleason had been pressured by World-Telegram owner Roy W. Howard to back off his controversial claim about bribery. A Newsday investigation later identified a long tradition of New York politicians putting reporters on campaign or government payrolls even as they continued covering the news. Cook's 1964 book, Goldwater: Extremist on the Right, initiated
609-538: The call sign WLYH-TV from 1959 to 2016 [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about radio and/or television stations with the same/similar call signs or branding. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WLYH&oldid=1056335772 " Category : Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
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#1733140426149638-508: The facts and see where they took him. The September 21, 1957 issue of The Nation was dedicated entirely to Cook's investigation of the Hiss case, which was called, "Hiss: New Perspectives on the Strangest Case of our Time." In the article Cook wrote for The Nation , he ultimately was of the opinion that Hiss was not guilty of the accusations made by Whittaker Chambers who accused Hiss of being
667-579: The highest levels of government and the judicial system. "It was quite a change for a noncombative, often conservative fellow who had begun life in a quiet seacoast town on the New Jersey shore and had grown up without any idea that he would wind up writing about the most controversial issues of his day." Though conservative in many respects , Cook wrote a number of articles for The Nation magazine, together with his longtime World-Telegram collaborator, Gene Gleason, and took positions usually identified with
696-752: The left . For instance, he opposed the death penalty, taking the position that it was cruel and didn't deter crime. He was also highly critical of the FBI , the CIA , and the Alger Hiss perjury conviction, as well as oil companies and defense contractors. His writing made him the target of FBI investigations against him. For The New York Times , Cook wrote about spending time inside Sing Sing state prison, militant community organizers in Newark , and environmental catastrophes in other parts of New Jersey. He also wrote an Op-Ed about
725-642: The nearby 1937 Hindenburg disaster . Having witnessed the airship flying overhead at Toms River, New Jersey , he first wrote about its anticipated safe arrival at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station , then had to quickly rewrite the story after getting to the crash site while the ship was still in flames. A few hundred copies of the earlier edition, with the wrong story, were already on their way to news stands, "so I knew I had to collar them and get them back," Cook said. Memos to Cook during this period of his career from Gene Gleason and other reporters "on
754-409: The sale was completed on December 3. On December 29, 2014, WGCB-TV stopped carrying MeTV programming (as WGAL-DT2 picked up that affiliation) and began carrying select programs from the classic television network Cozi TV , which also began to be carried on digital subchannel 49.2. NRJ TV agreed to sell WGCB-TV to Red Lion 49 Media, LLC for $ 2.5 million on August 29, 2017. The sale was approved by
783-614: Was announced that Sonshine would purchase WLYH from Red Lion 49 Media for $ 2.7 million. The sale was completed on May 9, 2019. As part of a channel sharing agreement with WHTM, the three subchannels (49.2 Cozi TV , 49.3 Charge! , 49.4 Escape ) were dropped. WLYH (as WGCB-TV) discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television . The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 30, using virtual channel 49. WGCB sold its spectrum for $ 84 million in
812-451: Was pretty damned accurate. And everything I saw in the FBI documents in the 1970s just confirmed that I was right. Cook and Gleason were fired by the World-Telegram in 1959 after writing an issue-length expose, "The Shame of New York", for The Nation . The men appeared on David Susskind 's TV show, " Open End ", during which Gleason claimed a high-ranking New York City official had offered him
841-631: Was the only individual in the U.S. to operate AM, FM, short-wave radio and television stations in one location, and under one ownership. On November 27, 1964, the WGCB radio stations carried a 15-minute religious broadcast maligning journalist Fred J. Cook that would spawn a monumental case that ended with Supreme Court 's approval of the Fairness Doctrine . The Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could enforce
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