The Real Attack on Public Broadcasting

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tim O'Reilly <tim () oreilly com>
Date: June 26, 2005 11:37:02 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: The Real Attack on Public Broadcasting


IPers might find Frank Rich's latest NYT editorial quite interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/opinion/26rich.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

(or use http://xrl.us/gjer if that url gets munged.)

Entitled The Armstrong Williams News Hour, the piece begins:


> "HERE'S the difference between this year's battle over public  
> broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich's face a  
> decade ago: this one isn't really about the survival of public  
> broadcasting. So don't be distracted by any premature obituaries  
> for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he's the  
> ornithological equivalent of a red herring....this time the game is  
> far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS  
> and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and  
> public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine  
> that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at  
> taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos  
> that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism"  
> of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid  
> to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new  
> world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.
> There's only one obstacle standing in the way of the coup. Like  
> Richard Nixon, another president who tried to subvert public  
> broadcasting in his war to silence critical news media, our current  
> president may be letting hubris get the best of him. His minions  
> are giving any investigative reporters left in Washington a fresh  
> incentive to follow the money.
>
> That money is not the $100 million that the House still threatens  
> to hack out of public broadcasting's various budgets. Like the  
> theoretical demise of Big Bird, this funding tug-of-war is a smoke  
> screen that deflects attention from the real story. Look instead at  
> the seemingly paltry $14,170 that, as Stephen Labaton of The New  
> York Times reported on June 16, found its way to a mysterious  
> recipient in Indiana named Fred Mann. Mr. Labaton learned that in  
> 2004 Kenneth Tomlinson, the Karl Rove pal who is chairman of the  
> Corporation for Public Broadcasting, clandestinely paid this sum to  
> Mr. Mann to monitor his PBS bête noire, Bill Moyers's "Now."...

The piece focuses on the "money trail" that shows how the right wing  
is working to take over PBS, as part of a broader strategy of  
controlling media critical of the Bush administration.  Scary stuff.



------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
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Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly Media, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
707-827-7000
http://www.oreilly.com (company), http://tim.oreilly.com (personal)



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