A study focused on how the broadcasting and advertising industries dealt publicly, through the medium of the trade journal, with political pressures shortly after the end of the Second World War. Was blacklisting and the political screening of talent acknowledged in the trade press? If so, did the publications approve or disapprove of the methods used by broadcasters and advertisers to keep alleged communists off the air? The weekly publications selected for analysis included "Advertising Age,""Broadcasting/Telecasting,""Variety,""Advertising Agency," and "Sponsor." All issues of the five trade publications appearing between 1950 and 1956 were analysed--the dates chosen to reflect the height of the blacklisting system. The consensus in most of the trade press was that communists or communist sympathizers in television did represent a genuine threat to national security. The main disagreement among these publications was about the methods used to remove such persons from broadcasting. No evidence was presented that national security had been compromised by television performers, writers, or producers. The world of mass communication cracked badly under the pressures of McCarthyism. Most of the advertising and broadcasting trade press fell in line with the prevailing hysteria. (Twenty-seven references are attached.) (MG)