Thursday, May 19, 2005
Bill Moyers on Media Reform
The National Conference for Media Reform, organized by Free Press convened last week in St. Louis. I picked this up from Grace Hanson, writer for the Utne Reader Online. Be The Media, blogging from the audience, hallways and streets of the conference collected and commented on some pretty substantial content, even some audio files of speeches, including Bill Moyers rousing speech, his first public appearance since leaving PBS six months ago (transcript here). He quotes Jason Miller on corporate corruption of mainstream media "...the real hope [for Journalism] lies within the Internet..."
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Thanks Alison Rostankowsi.
Dear Media Reformer:
I'm writing to ask you to help save America's public broadcasting system from political interference. PBS and NPR -- America's two most-trusted sources of news and information -- are under assault from Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Tomlinson has suppressed polling data, which shows overwhelming public support for PBS and NPR, to push through a series of initiatives designed to reshape public broadcasting as a mouthpiece for the White House. He has hijacked the CPB's nonpartisan mandate to stack the agency with conservative political operatives and push programming on PBS and NPR further to the right. Tomlinson has done all of this without once consulting Americans, a vast majority of whom find public broadcasting to be trustworthy and "fair and balanced" compared to other national news sources.
Last Sunday at the National Conference for Media Reform, veteran television journalist Bill Moyers blasted Tomlinson for his political meddling. Prior to Moyers' speech, Free Press launched a petition calling for a nationwide series of town hall meetings so the public -- and not Beltway political operatives -- can determine the future of public broadcasting.
Take a few moments to read Bill Moyers' speech. The full transcript is available now at:
www.freepress.net/news/8120
Then sign our petition calling for a series of town hall meetings on public broadcasting:
www.freepress.net/action/pbs
More than 70,000 Americans have signed the petition so far. We need 50,000 more signatures. Please add your name and ask more people to join the call to put the public back into PBS.
Forward this e-mail to all your friends and colleagues today and help protect public broadcasting from partisan tampering.
With your help, we can turn the tide against government efforts to muzzle the quality journalism, independent viewpoints, and dissenting voices that sustain our democracy.
Act now!
Timothy Karr
www.freepress.net
P.S. To learn more about building a public broadcasting system that deserves public support, read "A New Standard," the recent report from Free Press, Common Cause, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and Media Access Project at: http://www.freepress.net/docs/pbs_report.pdf
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