RE: Congress Pushes to End the Financing of NPR, PBS, and the National Endowment of the Arts!!!!
This is in response toe the e-mail bellow.
Hopefully NPR can survive on public donations (they always have those fundraisers). This is just the beginning. I hear conservatives have already put potential healthcare and education cuts on the table- they were saving it for after the election. Conservatives Republicans want to reduce the ballooning deficit and curtail Bush's spending. However, I think many would like to do this while at the same time preserving Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and preserving military defense spending. That means cuts to social programs for children, the poor, funding for the arts, and on and on. I think this is where the real fight will be over the next four years. I think we have a better shot at defending civil liberties (especially at the Supreme Court level)- and especially if moderates in the Republican party (i.e. Arlen Specter) stand up for themselves. However this means Democrats, as the minority party, are going to have to broker deals in closed door meetings. I think we'll probably concede defeat and allow conservative judicial appointments at the lower court levels, and even cuts in spending on many Democratic initiatives. It's very sad, but hopefully Republicans will pull back on some of their more radical proposals (whether they be economic, social, or environmental). What's even more sad, most of my information (including what I wrote here) comes from NPR!! And how about all those old ladies who watch "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS- what will they do!!
The risk with PBS/NPR is not only funding (although it is quite vital), but also the ideological influences. The conservatives certainly hated the idea of public TV or radio (as public anything) and there certainly has been a long-time effort to eliminate the funding. However, in addition to that they deiced that "if you can't fight the media, be the media" - PBS in this case. For some reason ever since I came here I hear how "liberal" the NPR is... Well, I don't want to go into that discussion, but I can't figure out what is it that makes them liberal. I always thought of them as professional and (at least seemingly) fact based outlet for good reporting. So does it mean that liberal in the media is a euphemism for professionalism and integrity? Sorry... a little detour. Back to the issue. There has been a covert and sometimes not so covert move to make PBS more conservative (culturally/politically speaking).
Few month ago there was a peculiar article in the New Yorker magazine titled "Big Bird's flight to the Right" (or something to that effect). It described quite nicely the ongoing efforts to "penetrate" the "Liberal" network. It ranged from seemingly naive things like having Dick Cheney's wife hosting children's reading program to having more conservative analysts (pundits) on the air. I am not sure what happened to the Lynne Cheney's literary project (although I would suggest checking her prior venture into writing with her, reportedly steamy, lesbian novel "Sisters", - which she tried very hard to stop from reprinting recently... I haven't really read it and can't judge it's content, but it appears that the homosexual content of the novel is suddenly undesirable publicity for Cheneys - not surprisingly). But the latter move seems to be materializing. Bill Moyers is retiring from PBS and his great program "Now". The program will stay on the air and will be hosted by his current co-host, but it will be cut down to 30 minutes, instead of the whole hour.
To admittedly "balance" this short program PBS is adding three, yes three, conservative analytical shows. One is already on the air - "Unfiltered with Tucker Carlson (of CNN crossfire)", which suggests he was somehow "filtered" on CNN. They will have another famous right wing commentator - Michael Medved - with his own show, and I can't remember the third show.
Yes...We can certainly say that is balanced now...maybe too balanced.
The bad part is that this is very smart strategy for the conservatives. If this penetration is successful and the network survives they will have another propaganda outlet. On the other side they are probably betting that the "liberals" will get so upset with this that they will stop pledging money to the network and will leave it at the mercy of the government funding. We can see what is happening to that piece of the puzzle from your e-mail bellow.
Looks like we will be left with totally independent (but small) information sources and some of the foreign press.
-----Original Message-----
Few month ago there was a peculiar article in the New Yorker magazine titled "Big Bird's flight to the Right" (or something to that effect). It described quite nicely the ongoing efforts to "penetrate" the "Liberal" network. It ranged from seemingly naive things like having Dick Cheney's wife hosting children's reading program to having more conservative analysts (pundits) on the air. I am not sure what happened to the Lynne Cheney's literary project (although I would suggest checking her prior venture into writing with her, reportedly steamy, lesbian novel "Sisters", - which she tried very hard to stop from reprinting recently... I haven't really read it and can't judge it's content, but it appears that the homosexual content of the novel is suddenly undesirable publicity for Cheneys - not surprisingly). But the latter move seems to be materializing. Bill Moyers is retiring from PBS and his great program "Now". The program will stay on the air and will be hosted by his current co-host, but it will be cut down to 30 minutes, instead of the whole hour.
To admittedly "balance" this short program PBS is adding three, yes three, conservative analytical shows. One is already on the air - "Unfiltered with Tucker Carlson (of CNN crossfire)", which suggests he was somehow "filtered" on CNN. They will have another famous right wing commentator - Michael Medved - with his own show, and I can't remember the third show.
Yes...We can certainly say that is balanced now...maybe too balanced.
The bad part is that this is very smart strategy for the conservatives. If this penetration is successful and the network survives they will have another propaganda outlet. On the other side they are probably betting that the "liberals" will get so upset with this that they will stop pledging money to the network and will leave it at the mercy of the government funding. We can see what is happening to that piece of the puzzle from your e-mail bellow.
Looks like we will be left with totally independent (but small) information sources and some of the foreign press.
-----Original Message-----
Hopefully NPR can survive on public donations (they always have those fundraisers). This is just the beginning. I hear conservatives have already put potential healthcare and education cuts on the table- they were saving it for after the election. Conservatives Republicans want to reduce the ballooning deficit and curtail Bush's spending. However, I think many would like to do this while at the same time preserving Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and preserving military defense spending. That means cuts to social programs for children, the poor, funding for the arts, and on and on. I think this is where the real fight will be over the next four years. I think we have a better shot at defending civil liberties (especially at the Supreme Court level)- and especially if moderates in the Republican party (i.e. Arlen Specter) stand up for themselves. However this means Democrats, as the minority party, are going to have to broker deals in closed door meetings. I think we'll probably concede defeat and allow conservative judicial appointments at the lower court levels, and even cuts in spending on many Democratic initiatives. It's very sad, but hopefully Republicans will pull back on some of their more radical proposals (whether they be economic, social, or environmental). What's even more sad, most of my information (including what I wrote here) comes from NPR!! And how about all those old ladies who watch "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS- what will they do!!
posted by Shus at 12:13 PM
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