Joseph McCarthy had much influence over the media and took advantage of the fear of communism at the time, if he didn't create that fear himself. His role in the red scare can be traced back to a speech he made in February 1950 at a Republican Lincoln Day dinner, where he said he had access to a list of over 200 people working within the goverment who were actually communists (the list was fake, but the damage was done) people got scared and the media was all over the story, trumpeting up the red scare. I'm sure it would have been interesting times to witness, if not scary.

Here's an informative little video about JoMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_uTbVfDtgI

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