Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Kill Big Bird? Call Nina Totenberg!

Let's face another fact. PBS is moribund. Gone are the teeth. Pretty far gone is the voice. Ideologues are in charge and on top, and the network is withering away under malign stewardship. It has one foot in the grave.

And I held those views before I found this site, Free Press : Save PBS from partisan operatives:


Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — the government-funded organization that was designed to shield PBS from political pressure — is aggressively pressing PBS to correct what he considers "liberal bias."

This top-down partisan meddling goes against the very nature of PBS and the local stations we trust. Let the people speak and decide the future of PBS, not secret dealings by White House operatives.


I found it funny that the email that referred to this site had to go to some pains to convince its readers that this was not the famed "Save PBS...Nina Totenberg" urban legend email hoax. I know I was dismissive at first. But go to MoveOn.org or FreePress.net and follow it. This is for real.

2 comments:

Miller said...

It really does look as though PBS has at least one foot in the grave and might be in it up to the waist. Now, to overextend the metaphor, Tomlinson wants to make sure that PBS is buried completely. (The dirt will stop any truth from coming out?)

For objectivity, we may all need to get shortwave sets and tune in to BBC. Do you think they should broadcast the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth at the start of programs that will reach the US?

KC said...

Block that metaphor!

Who cares if the truth comes out as long as it can be effectively countered by the captive media? And as long as Judith Miller is reporting on Iraq,... well, you get the idea.