Posted on 05/02/2005 10:22:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
PBS is a government subsidy for obnoxious, deep-pocketed progressives and a jobs program for liberal journalists. But the New York Times' story targeting Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, suggests that the left is losing its grip on PBS and getting pretty worried about it. The Times story -- titled "Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases" -- reads like a press release from the office of Bill Moyers.
In the first paragraph, the Times says that "some public broadcasting leaders" -- read entrenched liberals upset with Tomlinson for scrutinizing their long-unchallenged perks and propaganda powers -- object that "his actions pose a threat to editorial independence." Editorial independence -- how's that for a euphemism? The Times likes that grand phrase, especially as it sounds a lot better than taxpayer-financed liberal monopoly.
Anytime a liberal government monopoly is challenged the mainstream media depict the figure challenging it as "political" while the engineers of the monopoly are merely "independent." The Times story proceeds on this sham premise. For example, Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of PBS, is treated by the Times as a disinterested critic of Tomlinson, saying very primly that "I think there have been instances of attempts to influence content from a political perspective that I do not consider appropriate."
As opposed to your leftist political perspective, Ms. Mitchell? Mitchell is a liberal environmentalist and Jane Fonda crony who cut her tendentious teeth as a documentarian for Ted Turner. But you would never know that from this Times story. The implication of Mitchell's remark is that Tomlinson is putting the kibosh on apolitical content. Turn on PBS and you will quickly see what the liberals who run it consider apolitical and editorially independent.
PBS's idea of editorially independent content is "Postcards from Buster," a cartoon Mitchell aired until controversy ensued earlier this year that depicted a third-grade rabbit named Buster visiting Vermont (evidently post-Howard Dean and his same-sex civil unions legislation) for the spring maple harvest, during which Buster learns a lesson or two about enlightened family composition by staying with a lesbian couple and their children. Or was Mitchell referring to that apolitical bastion of editorial neutrality, Bill Moyers, whose evenhanded news reporting on PBS includes saying that George Bush will "force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives"?
Influencing content from a political perspective, namely, leftism, is PBS's specialty. Yet the Times makes Tomlinson's utterly reasonable attempts to bring a little balance to this nonsense sound sinister, reporting, "Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, 'Now With Bill Moyers.'" So? It is about time. You would need an outside consultant for that job as nobody on the board or inside the PBS building is up to the task of monitoring Moyers.
He has gotten rich off supping at the public trough, treating PBS as his personal fiefdom (in part because he filled his friend Lyndon B. Johnson's head with the bad idea for PBS) while violating the law mandating balance that set it up years ago. Tomlinson is simply doing what Moyers' enablers won't do. The outrage isn't that Moyers was under review but that he is still on the air, using taxpayers' money to insult them and their views.
That liberals view PBS as their personal playhouse is seen in the hysterical reaction of PBS staffers to Tomlinson's mild programming suggestions, which resulted in Tucker Carlson getting a show and "The Journal Editorial Report," hosted by Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal. Pat Mitchell who pushed these shows through for diplomatic reasons is so defensive about PBS's naked liberal bias she won't even acknowledge that these tentative steps toward balance represent a correction of PBS's prejudices. "You're assuming we're doing this to balance something," she rebuked a reporter a while back.
The Times's report is an attempt to scare Tomlinson off further reform. It reflects pouting at PBS and fear that its liberal monopoly may crack up. Tomlinson should keep going with his reforms and ask the public to join him. Most Americans don't realize how much destructive journalism and programming their tax dollars have financed. At a time of severe deficits no less, the American people are expected to pay for programming that corrupts their children, for documentaries that seek to understand this or that anti-American menace, domestic or external (PBS is always good for a retrospective on Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, the Black Panthers, 1960s rabble, etc.), and for a diet of Darwinism via nature documentaries. Even its most innocuous programming seems absurd at this point, given the glut of cable channels containing PBS-like content. Do the American people need to pay higher taxes for the privilege of watching Yanni or listening to Suze Orman harangue them about inept investment strategies?
Since the Republicans don't have the stomach to tackle PBS again, the American people need Kenneth Tomlinson to pry the liberals' fingers off it. The more effective he is in this task, the more distressed headlines from the aggrieved ruling class's newspaper of record will come.
Exactly. The only time PBS is really worth watching is during pledge drives. Once the drive is over, it's back to leftist/multiculti propaganda about the neverending crimes of heterosexual peoples of European descent. And as for Bill Moyers, I loved his series with Joseph Campbell. But aside from that, he's an arch liberal who was a tool of one of the worst Presidents in American history (LBJ).
Here's what I suggest: Cap the PBS subsidy at current levels. Decrease funding (from current levels) 10% per year over the next five years and then 25% per year for years 6-7 until PBS operates without any subsidy in 8 years.
Dora the Explorer has nothing to do with PBS. She is on Nikelodeon and CBS, which are Viacom stations. Dora is very much a commercial program.
On the other hand This Old House has stopped being about real world projects and now builds 2 million dollar spec homes in a Boston Suburb or restores a Bermuda Bed and Breakfast for a million dollars. Not too much public in those public shows.
Dozens of companies have create big succesful businesses like TOH and Muppets yet they repay PBS almost nothing for the airwaves. Time to make changes not only in content but who pays - cause nobody is going to kill PBS.
Of course you are a BIG LIAR, going along with the administration's BIG LIE. Your slants are part of the problem. Sorry, but blind obedience and acquiescence is not what our forefathers envisioned for this country. Seeking out the truth is not a liberal conspiracy. It should be every citizen's duty.
What is wrong with some independent thinking? Why must the administration control every message that passes through the media to the people?
Most of what passes for news these days, is just mind control! Message control is mind control. Read George Orwell, if you don't know about the concept. It seems the president and pals, use Orwell's 1984 as a game plan.
There is a great need for non-government approved information. The truth is, these government planners, via the K. Tomlinson appointment, are trying to do something about the "Moyers" problem, the independent voice problem. Voices like Moyers' are not conveniently agreeable to the presidential talking points of the day - they are not "on message." So they have to be silenced? Apparently you agree with the administration, that, yes, they do.
As Moyers himself notes elequently - what people try to hide from us, IS THE NEWS. On the other hand, what people in power allow you or encourage you to know, is mere PUBLICITY. The job, the real work of journalism, is about uncovering the truth, even that which lies behind the "official version." It's not to pass along the official story. When that happens, we have no real, true information. Uninformed, we happliy go along with the flow. To whatever unwise ends.
From Moyers - An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy – or worse.
From Moyers again - Without a trace of irony, the powers-that-be have appropriated the newspeak vernacular of George Orwell’s “1984.” They give us a program vowing “No Child Left Behind” while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged kids. They give us legislation cheerily calling for “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” that give us neither. And that’s just for starters.
From Orwell's 1984 - "Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought,” he said, “will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
Orwell and even Hitler - great models for communication and control aren't they? And that is what this administration does try to emulate - keep free thought and responsible questioning, much less dissent, out of the picture.
Sorry, again, blind obedience is not what our forefathers envisioned for this country.
You're cute.
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