Public Broadcasting Under Siege!

[TOAD6147]

$800,000 buys two seats on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board!

The Bush Administration has awarded two major Republican donors seats on the nine-member board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Bush appointees Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines and their families have given over $800,000 to Republican causes in recent years.

But just as troubling are the agendas that Halpern and Hart Gaines would bring to the CPB. Both have stated views or espoused causes that call into question their qualifications to service on a board whose mission is to promote and fund public television and radio programming.

Halpern, in her confirmation hearings, indicated that she would welcome empowering the CPB board members to intervene in program content when they felt a program was biased. And, Gaines was an ardent supporter of Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) who, as House Speaker in 1994, proposed cutting all federal assistance to public television.

Common Cause will not let this issue slip by without public scrutiny. We need your help to bring this to the public's attention.

We must not let partisan insiders wrest control of public broadcasting from balanced board members and threaten the integrity of the CPB from within.

Full story here.

[RADAR1797]

LOL, that is funny, CPB is already controlled by partisans, just happens to be the ones they like.

-RADAR

[Chuckiechan]

There should be public scrutiny. CPB and PBS are house organs for the Democratic party. Time to level the playing field a little.

People spit out the word "conservative" as if it were a curse.

Education should be next.

[TOAD6147]

People spit out the word "conservative" as if it were a curse.

Sorta' like when they spit out the word "liberal"?

[tony_j15]

TOAD, where have you been? If you know a President or have contributed to his cause, chances are you will get on board. Been that was since Jackson. And its that way in business too! Its that way with choosing teams at school to play ball! Its like that everywhere!

Bush appointees Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines and their families have given over $800,000 to Republican causes in recent years.

On the other hand, whoop-de-friggen-do! C'mon, they gave money to a cause they believe in, and some would have them penalized for that?

[TOAD6147]

TOAD, where have you been?

Probably around a lot longer than you have.

[Knothead]

Is it just me, or does anybody else feel that this current administration exhibits no tolerance for views it regards as "dissident"?

Heck, NPR has been broken, it's a mere shell of what it once was. Their funding has been cut to pieces. Perhaps they were a little too "liberal", eh?

The legendary KLON is gone* ( a station totally devoted to jazz and blues) as well as KCLU, a station I used to enjoy on the weekends.

We are witnessing Major losses... Programs like:

A Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor's award-winning variety show
Car Talk
Don't Tell Me, Let me guess

And many others.

* The frequency that KLON used to have (88.1) is now occupied by K-Jazz, who actually are doing a pretty good job...although they have to do constant fund appeals to stay alive.

[Harold7]

So exactly why should American taxpayers have to fund PBS and NPR?

Maybe they could get George Soros or Barbara Streisand or Alec Baldwin to fund those broadcasts with their billions and leave the rest of us alone.

There are some good things on PBS, but I imagine the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and the A&E channel could easily provide the same programming.

Let's de-politicize the whole subject by by doing away with the CPB and letting the market place determine what shows up on the airways.

[Chuckiechan]

PBS came about before cable existed. It was a way to get "Hi brow" intertainment that the big three wouldn't carry for economic reasons. (read: won't sell).

The time is passed for you and I to support a TV network that mayby only You watch. If they can't make it without taxpayer money after all of these years, maybe they have outlived their usefulness.

[Knothead]

You raise a good point, Harold7, (i.e., "let the market determine viability") but I would suggest that you may have perhaps never hung out with NPR National Public Radio.

Let me sketch out for you guys what it was:

NPR was an oasis of creative prgramming, where creative thought was PARAMOUNT.

No commercials, nobody trying to sell soap or the latest pre-packaged amusement to an increasingly jaded public...no screaming idiots boasting about their car dealership, nothing like that.

Instead, you got a whole panopoly of music (that you were heretofor unaware of) and humorous programs (which required some attention, which I was more than happy to give, ) and counter-cultural essays, that were thought-provoking, even when I didn't agree with any of it....

Well, I guess the "market" (in the Republican sense) will prevail. and all you guys will get on the airwaves now will be the lowest common denominator....

Stale rock-and-roll interspersed with commercial crap.

Mind control. Be good little consumers, and nevermind what the government is doing to you, you'll be mind-dead soon enough, anyway.