Print"Public" Broadcasting fights back
Bill Moyers, the former LBJ hatchet man and left wing ideologue, is attacking those who seek to rescue PBS and NPR from their leftward lurch toward death. For decades, PBS and NPR have violated the law which requires they be "strictly fair, objective and balanced."
In the age of satellite radio, hundreds of cable channels, and limitless options on the web, we don't need public broadcasting to bring culture to all Americans. Even less do we need am unaccountable leftist media establishment consuming our tax dollars to propagandize us.
Kenneth Tomlinson, the new chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds the seed money for public stations, who in turn leverage that money with donors' funds to buy left wing programming from PBS and NPR, is making a last—ditch effort to save public broadcasters from themselves, by trying to provide some balance in their programming. They do not seem to appreciate his efforts.
Ironically, the biggest beneficiary of the fall of NPR would be Air America radio, which would no longer face subsidized competition for the left wing audience.
It is a dirty job, and I guess someone ought to do it. But frankly, I think public broadcasting deserves an early death. It has betrayed the public trust for too long. It's highly valuable frequencies for radio and TV ought to revert to the federal government, not, as many are now suggesting, be sold off to create an endowment to perpetually fund more left wing programming. The feds can auction the frequencies off and retire some debt.
The left wing is in a panic right now. They see that conservative ideas are taking hold, now that alternative media voices exist, and the public can hear more than simply the left wing line. They are responding with fury, trying to choke off the new alternative voices, with their attacks of Fox, the blogosphere, and talk radio (the "fairness doctrine" is being talked up). Meanwhile, The Ford Foundation has just committed $50 million to funding more left wing programmers.
It isn't going to work. But that is no reason to relax.
Thomas Lifson 5 16 05
