Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Dear American Public Broadcasting fans: You are SO screwed.


You American Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) fans might want to start looking for alternatives for your objective news, given this:

June 14, 2005

Corporation for Public Broadcasting
401 9th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004-2129

Dear Board Members,

I was troubled to read in The Washington Post that former Republican National Committee co-chairwoman Patricia de Stacy Harrison is the "leading candidate" to be the next president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a position to which the CPB board of directors would appoint her.

As you know, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established to shield American public broadcasting from political pressure. While Ms. Harrison has an impressive resume as a Republican activist and political appointee within the Bush administration, she lacks any experience in public broadcasting or independent journalism. I find it implausible that CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson and your board cannot find a leading candidate who has the kind of extensive, relevant experience the position demands.

More troubling, by appointing a Republican activist to manage an organization designed to protect public broadcasting from political pressure, the board would be signaling to those who have treasured public broadcasting as a bastion of fairness and balance that it is now vulnerable to political manipulation. From Rush Limbaugh to the Fox News Channel, there is no shortage of conservative media in the United States. If CPB is committed to continuing to provide a nonpartisan alternative to such outlets, turning over the reins to a former co-chairwoman of the Republican Party is on odd way to accomplish that goal.

I urge you to find another candidate to lead CPB, hopefully one with more experience in public broadcasting than in partisan politics.

Sincerely,

David Brock

You do know what's actually happening here, right? Given a Republican CPB president, the CPB will inexorably begin to slant all of its programming to the right, alienating its current centrist and progressive listeners who will start tuning out in droves, driving down CPB's audience, at which point the Bush administration, citing CPB's dwindling audience, can justify slashing its funding.

See how that works? If you're a Republican, there's no need to explicitly get rid of the CPB. You just have to make it so awful that no one wants to listen to it anymore. Clever, no?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Being a liberal journalist like PBS's Bill Moyer requires not only the regular inhalation of vast amounts of household cleansers, but strict diligence in constantly reminding the mindless sheeple of the insidious evil of the Bush junta.

As a rule, it's good practice to compare Bush to Hitler at least once a week. But if you're like me, you have little patience for dimwitted repugs who refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Even adding "itler" to the end of his name fails to convince them.

Often, they'll actually demand you present "facts" to back up your claims - a typical rightwing tactic to lower the debate to their level.

All American progressive liberals must continue to force the American people to fund PBS's progressive views through taxpayer dollars. This way the ignorant Rethuglican sheeple will continue to be reminded that Bush IS Hitler and that Rumsfeld must resign from Halliburton.


Progressive Paul