Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Donate your vehicle during the month of April or May and you'll be entered into a $500 Visa gift card drawing!
New Hampshire's First in the Nation Presidential Primary turns 100 years old in 2016. Discover some of the people, places and stories behind that history through these audio and digital stories from NHPR.

Political Godmother: Nackey Scripps Loeb and the Newspaper That Shook the Republican Party

All this week on The Exchange, it's another opportunity to hear some of our most interesting discussions of the year. NHPR's Peter Biello talked with the author of a biography of Nackey Scripps Loeb. She headed the Union Leader Corporation in the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most unusual and influential local newspapers in the U.S. Her unapologetic conservatism and position in the first-in-the-nation primary state gave her an outsized and now largely forgotten role in American politics. Although she initially had no interest in the newspaper business, she wrote more than a thousand front-page editorials, drew political cartoons, and became a regular on C-SPAN. We discussed her legacy in Granite State politics and women's roles in shaping the modern conservative movement.

Airing Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020. Originally aired July 16, 2020

GUESTS:

  • Meg Heckman - author and assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University. She worked as a reporter and editor for the Concord Monitor newspaper for more than a decade.
  • Lou D’Allesandro - Democratic New Hampshire Senator, representing the 20th district since 1998. He ran for Governor twice in over two decades in NH politics.
  • Gregory V. Sullivan - served as General Counsel for the Union Leader Corporation for the past 43 years. He is also an instructor at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications and a faculty member of Suffolk University Law School where he teaches First Amendment and media law.

If you're not familiar with Nackey Loeb, Politico has this excerpt from Meg Heckman's book:The New Hampshire Publisher Who Became the ‘Political Godmother’ of the Modern Right.

Related Content

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.