The New York Times NEW YORK, MONDAY OCTOBER 31, 1938 The War of The Worlds The 1938 Radio Script

By Howard E. Koch Based on the novel by H.G. Wells

Dramaturgy by: Directed By: Hannah Simon Emily Swart Table of Contents

The Dream Team: About The Creators 3

About the Book 4

The Broadcast 5 The Creation 6 Making it Convincing 7 ' Comments 8 Listening In 9 Hysteria or Hoax? 10

Fake News 11

Social Media 12

Area 51 13 The New York Times

Now Presenting... The Dream Team! Orson Welles Born May 6th, 1915, Orson Welles was just 21 when he founded with John Houseman. After several successful productions, Mercury moved to radio and begun producing weekly segments of "Mercury Theatre on the Air" from 1938 to 1940, and again in 1946. At 23, Wells had the idea to adapt War of The Worlds for radio. Because of the popularity of the broadcast, Wells became a Hollywood sensation. Getting a contract with RKO at 24, and starring in one of the most famous films, (1941). Howard E. Koch Howard E. Koch was born on December 12, 1901. He grew up in NY and also studied there. He got a law degree from Columbia in 1925. As he was practicing law, he wrote plays for Broadway. In the 1930s he started writing for Mercury Theatre on The Air company, and stunned with world with the 1938 broadcast. The success of this broadcast launched him to co-writing the academy award winning film, Casablanca (1942). Eventually, Koch wrote a screenplay for Mission to Moscow portraying Stalin in a positive light in 1943. This led to him being labeled as a communist, and balcklisted in 1951. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was published in 1897, forty years before Orson Welles' adaptation. This book is considered a landmark in science fiction novels. H.G. Wells compares aliens to British colonialism. In this book, he also muses over current technology being too much technology. This is clear with the terrifying heat rays that the Martians have. Wells also comments on the human drive to conquer. Because of the chaos that this invasion creates in the book, Wells also comments on the difference between humans and animals. Perhaps they aren't so different after all. Is humankind really worth saving?

Click here to read the full novel. Click here for more analysis. The New York Times The Broadcast That Shocked the World! On the night before Halloween 1938, Orson Welles shocked the world with his realistic radio broadcast of Martians invading Grovers Mill, New Jersey. People fled from their houses as they panicked thinking the story was real.

Here's why they thought it was real...

The New York Times The Creation Without knowing what book to adapt, Welles had the idea "of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening, and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play." Eventually Welles and Houseman (his producer) settled on War of the Wars.

Houseman passed the project on recently hired script writer, Howard E. Koch. Koch had less than a week to turn the novel into a credible fake news radio play. The New York Times Making it Convincing A few hours before the broadcast, frantic rewrites were happening. No one thought the broadcast was good, or even interesting.

Until..

Houseman told Koch to take out any passage of time, and to make sure the broadcast felt like it was happening in real time. They also extended the first act longer than radio programs were used to. The first act wasn't over until 8:40, instead of the usual 8:30, so listeners were even more convinced when it broke from conventional radio format. Frank Readick, the actor cast as the reporter, found a recording of the Hindenberg disaster broadcast, and used it to understand the feeling and emotion behind such a crisis. Orson Welles hired an actor he knew could do a spot on impersonation of FDR. The key revisions made to the script that Welles made, was the pacing. He wanted to make sure that it started out slow and increasing got faster and more chaotic. Orson Welles never intended to deceive his audience.

...or did he? The New York Times Listening In How does something as silly as aliens invading, terrify the nation?

There are a few things to take into consideration here: 1.Most Americans at this time were listening to a popular ventriloquist, Edward Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy on a different channel. When that show was over, they flipped the channel and tuned into CBS during a musical interlude that got interrupted by "breaking news", missing the intro entirely. 2.Americans were used to listening to the news on the Radio and learned to trust the radio because of FDR's Fireside Chats (1933-1944). 3.The world was on the verge of WWII (1939). Only a month before the broadcast, America was listening closely for days as it appeared that Europe was heading into war during the Munich Crisis of September. The New York Times Hysteria or Hoax?

It is estimated by Radiolab that about 12 million people were listening when Welles' broadcast came on air. They say that about 1 out of 12 thought it was true. And a percentage of those actually got in their cars and fled.

Slate News, however, says otherwise, "The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable." Slate also goes on to say that the newspapers allegedly "seized the opportunity presented by Welles' program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted." FakFakee NNewewss

Yellow Journalism: newspaper reports that are exaggerated and written to shock readers.

Propaganda: information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people's opinions, especially by not giving all of the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts.

Fake News: false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke. social media

Social media has been perpetuating the spread of fake news articles. Fake news is sometimes even getting more engagement than credible media sources. AArreeaa 5511

Since this Facebook event started, Area 51 visitor traffic has increased by 1,700%.

The Alien Research Center has had 20 times more visitors than it did a few months ago.

The local hotel is sold out for September 20th.

They are estimating 30,000 people will show up.

Because of this, they are hosting events such as Alienstock.