Bush puts RNC in charge of Public Television

[Moses]

CPB Board Picks Harrison

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/23/2005 12:49:00 PM

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting board has picked Patricia Harrison to succeed Kathleen Cox as president of CPB. Harrison had been Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs

”CPB needs to be in the forefront of support for public broadcasting and we look forward to supporting Pat Harrison in this important effort," the board said in a statement. Harrison comes aboard July 5 and says she will work to restore planned budget cuts to the service.

Harrison Critic Center for Digital Democracy had its own statement: Executive Director Jeff Chester said: "We hope that the personnel and leadership of public broadcasting will speak out sharply against this appointment and the actions of the Tomlinson-led wrecking crew."


"The Center  last week called for an investigation into the search process.

Harrison was the choice of CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson, but her Republican resume--she is former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee--raised red flags with Tomlinson critics, who say he is systematically moving PBS and NPR to the right.

Various Democratic lawmakers, as well as the chairman of PBS, had called on the board not to pick Harrison, saying it would increase the political tensions.


One of those legislators, Rep. Diane Watson of California, reacted strongly to the news of Harrison's posting: "The appointment of Patricia Harrison as the new CPB president smells to high heaven of secrecy and partisanship," she told B&C. "This outrageous choice demands an immediate investigation into CPB's search and selection process."



Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who criticized the Harrison appointment during a House floor debate on CPB funding Thursday, said later in a statement: "

"The Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) Board should reconsider the wisdom of naming the ex-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee to a non-partisan position, especially at a time when the Chairman of CPB has failed to uphold the non-partisan nature of the system."

PBS President Pat Mitchell responded to the news: "Patricia Harrison is a well respected executive with a track record of significant accomplishments. 

PBS has had concerns about the appointment of a former political party chair to the position of president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – which must be nonpartisan in both appearance and execution. With that said, it is our hope and expectation that  Ms. Harrison  will execute her responsibilities with nonpartisan integrity." 

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, which helped generate a million petitions to Congress to get the politics out of public TV, was not reticent about his unhappiness: "Patricia Harrison's selection as president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is an outrage. Her complete lack of experience and close ties to the leadership of the Republican Party represent a new low in public broadcasting history."



At almost the same time Harrison's appointment was announced, the House was debating Republican-driven cuts in CPB's budget (an amendment to resore $100 million in funds was defeated on voice vote but awaiting a roll call vote later in the day).
 
In a statement, Harrison vowed to "join with public broadcast leaders to restore congressional cuts of CPB in the President’s Fiscal Year 2006 Budget."


Ken Ferree, who has been acting CPB president since Cox exited, will remain Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer of CPB, according to a spokesman.

[Moses]

Goebbels effectively used his control of German media to perpetuate NAZI idelology. Hitler was pictured as a virtually infalable leader. Goebbels also carfully tailored German media to promulgate NAZI ideas such as the need to regain lost territory, Lebensraum, and protect the Aryan race. The Germans were told that Aryan German would rule the world and its inferior races. NAZI propaganda today sounds to us brutish, evil, and ignorant. Many Germans, however, accepted it. Those that did not soon learned that it was dangerous to express disenting opinions. Some educated older Germans recognized Goebbels' propagaganda for what it was. It was the young people that were most suspectable. They had little of the education and experiences that enabled some older Germans to question NAZI propaganda.

histclo.com/bio/g/bio-goebels.html

[Moses]

Under Bush, the CPB has given $20 million to Republican Front org Richard Carlson (father of Tucker) to produce propaganda about the "War on Terror" AND given little Tucker his own show on PBS to serve as another outlet for the right wing echo chamber:

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Rory O'Connor

Two recent multi-million dollar programming initiatives are now being denounced by the board of directors of the Public Television Programmers Association (PTPA) as “a disservice to viewers and stations alike.”

The first, entitled “America at a Crossroads,” is CPB’s largest programming initiative in recent years, undertaken as a direct response to the attacks of 9/11. CPB framed the twenty million dollar effort as a means of producing programming that explores

“…the nature and direction of international terrorism [sic], the war against it [sic], the use of American power against states that harbor or sponsor terrorists [sic], America’s image abroad, radical Islamist movements [sic] , pre-emptive military action, unilateralism, regime change, conflicts between homeland security and civil liberties, and other still-emerging questions resulting from the 9/11 attacks.”

24 program proposals have received research and development funds from the initiative. .... In reading through the descriptions of those CPB did select, the PTPA board was “struck by a profound sense of déjà vu,” according to a commentary written on its behalf by board president Garry Denny, associate director of programming at Wisconsin Public Television. “The programs funded to date have themes, topics, and narrative voices that are similar if not completely repetitive” of programming that has already aired on pubic broadcasting. Michael Pack, the conservative documentary film maker who as CPB vice president for television programming is the lead executive for the initiative, says the Crossroads initiative sought to “bring in new voices who will advance and enrich the discussion, not rehash the same old conversation.” But Denny and other public television programmers argue that “rehashing may indeed be exactly what we get.”

Part of the reason for the rehash may lie in the selection process itself. Although Pack says CPB’s Crossroads initiative intended “to bring new voices and energy to public television,” the former heads of both PBS and CPB mysteriously managed to qualify.

One time PBS honcho Jennifer Lawson (who once infamously pronounced human rights to be “an insufficient organizing principle for a television series") is teaming up with ABC News Productions (another “new” voice?) on a project called Security Versus Liberty: The Other War, which “will examine the tensions and trade-offs between security and liberty in the post-9/11 world by following several characters enmeshed in the controversy.” And ex-CPB chief Richard Carlson and his Foundation For the Defense of Democracies are paired with Barbara Newman and Tulip Hill Productions on Danger Zone, a two-part program that will “explore intelligence and special operations efforts to fight terrorism in the United States and worldwide.” Part one will offer an in-depth look at British intelligence agency MI5 and how it works with US Intelligence and Special Forces, including covert private contractors. Part two will investigate Hezbollah’s activities in about a dozen American cities.

If you find it noteworthy that the former head of CPB was chosen to receive research and development funds from CPB – a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress to develop educational public radio, television and online services for the American people – join the club! CPB is the largest single source of funds for national public television and radio program development and production. It also provided backing recently for two clearly unbalanced programs meant to ‘balance’ the presence of Bill Moyers on PBS. One featured the hard-right editorial board of the Wall Street Journal; the other starred the bow tied conservative Tucker Carlson, son of – you guessed it – Richard Carlson.

Last August, after writing about young Carlson’s selection as host of a PBS public affairs program, I received an anonymous tip from a reader. “I guess Tucker is so far out of the loop about how things work that he doesn’t even know that CPB/PBS is going to fund a series on terrorism through a front group working for his daddy, Richard Carlson. The group is organized through Carlson Senior’s Washington, D.C. foundation, and includes ex-CIA and FBI people,” my tipster noted. “This little sugar cookie was originally to have been announced in July, but some of Dick’s angels (Kenneth Tomlinson owes Dick big time) thought that it was dangerous to have an announcement so close to little Tucker’s lollipop being handed out.”

On March 10, 2005, CPB announced that Richard Carlson’s proposed two-part series on terrorism had been selected to receive an R&D grant. ....

Meanwhile, the association of public television programmers is busy denouncing not only Carlson’s grant, but also the entire Crossroads initiative itself on the basis that none of it fills any unmet needs or is worth the investment. And unlike Tomlinson’s, their hearts are pure. “We want to be crystal clear that our assessment…is not based on an ideological view,” PTPA board chair Garry Denny says. “This is not about politics. This is about serving the public with accessible, enlightening, informative programming and ensuring that every available dollar in the public television system be put to the most productive use possible.

“The twenty million dollars earmarked to fund America at a Crossroads is going through the wrong funnel,” the PTPA board concluded. Instead, the programmers believe that the Crossroads grants – and another new twenty million dollar history programming initiative – duplicate existing programs and are “a disservice to viewers and stations alike.” They suggest that both initiatives be “thoroughly re-evaluated” before further funding is committed. “Think what $40 million could do,” the PTPA board concluded.

A third round of Crossroads grants will be announced as early as next week, close on the heels of the unveiling of new PBS editorial standards intended to ensure balance and fairness, the hiring of yet another ombudsman ro review controversial programs after they air, and of course Congressional consideration of public broadcasting’s federal funding for next year.

[Moses]

The Berlusconi Model:

Jamie Rubin: Let's talk about Berlusconi's power over the TV. Directly or indirectly, he controls 90 percent of the viewers who watch TV in Italy -- through the private channels that he owns, and the government-controlled channels. But if you're an Italian sitting in Italy watching television, do you get objective news? Do you learn about the truth about the Italian economy, Italian politics? What's going on in the rest of the world? I mean, are they fed propaganda or is it only when it comes to Berlusconi that the news channels get cautious?

Alexander Stille: Well, I think the problem is it's very hard to distinguish them. When you're running the country almost everything can reflect badly or well on you. Berlusconi was not, let's say, the protagonist of the Iraq war, but he was an interested party. So that -- for example, the portrayal of peace marches. For example, there was a huge peace march in the middle of February which dominated many Italian's attention. It wasn't shown on Italian TV. [sound familiar?]

Jamie Rubin: But despite all that, in Italy they were massively against the war in Iraq, right?

Alexander Stille: Yes. It wasn't able to affect public opinion. So you could argue that even controlling TV, it's certainly not absolute. And there's a lot of information in Italy, but it's primarily in written form. What I think is troubling to me is that you can say there's a lot of freedom of information in Italy. You can find almost any point of view represented if you scour the book shops or read the the vast number of newspaper that appear every day.

But on television you don't have that same pluralism. Television, whether we like it or not, is the way that a vast majority of Italians, a vast majority of Americans, get their news. And there there's much much less pluralism and the control is much more total exercised by Berlusconi.

Jamie Rubin: But is it communist-style TV? Are they getting the basic truths about what's happening in Italy or the world? Is it so much propaganda or is it just when it comes to Berlusconi's interests, they try to protect them?

Alexander Stille: Well, to give you an idea. I mean if this matters during election coverage. And I think we all appreciate how important that is. If you watch one of Berlusconi's channels -- the anchorman on one of his channels wept with joy when Berlusconi was elected on air.

I've watched programs in which he's just literally insulted the political opposition. Called them liars. Called them enemies. Called them communists. Called them all sorts of things. Berlusconi will get ten times more coverage. And I saw his main political adversary was given a little sound byte in which he was portrayed at a fish market talking about how to cook fish instead of talking about the political issues of the day. You know that may seem laughable to many people. And many Italians will tell you, oh, I actually watch that for amusement. But it's not so funny if you consider that, for example, there are statistics that show that the people who watch Berlusconi's channels vote overwhelmingly for his party.

And the amount of TV they watch is directly proportioned to the percentage in which they vote for Forza Italia, his party. You realize that control of television does translate into votes, and translates into power in ways that should make, I think, everyone uneasy.

Jamie Rubin: We are describing, almost, a modern-day Mussolini who controls all the levers of power: Parliament, the press. Who is able to stop prosecutions of himself.[i.e., the Courts] But do you believe that modern-day Italy has freedom of the press or not?

Alexander Stille: Well, I think it has a partial freedom of the press. I think that what is interesting and a little scary about Berlusconi is that he's understood, maybe more than any politician, that if something doesn't appear on television it doesn't exist in our world. And so there is freedom of the press because you can find it in print form, if you look at certain newspapers or in certain books. But you won't find it on TV. And so you have a partial freedom. At the same time, Italians are not stupid. And they do have many democratic freedoms. And if they're really unhappy they will vote him out of office. They did vote against him in regional elections recently, which shows that they will base their votes on results. And if those results aren't forthcoming, they eventually will distinguish between all of the stuff they're hearing on TV and the reality they see in their own minds.

Jamie Rubin: So you're saying that democracy's working but it's threatened by his power? Would that be a way of putting it?
Alexander Stille: Yes. I think it's a partial incomplete democracy which is working very badly at the moment. And I think what is troublesome and should be of concern to all of us is that it's setting a model for the way democracy works in our world. In which private interests are allowed to have a much greater share of public life than they have anywhere else. And I think that's a model that people get used to that, and say, Well, if they can do that in Italy, then what's the big deal if I do it to a lesser degree here in France? Or in England or in this country? And so I think it's setting precedents that are unhealthy for a democracy.

Jamie Rubin: How much do you think the Berlusconi model is playing out in other parts of the world? We see Rupert Murdoch have enormous influence in the media. We've seen Senator Corzine from New Jersey, a self-made multi-millionaire. We've seen Mayor Bloomberg in New York City use his own money to run for office. Do you think Berlusconi is a uniquely Italian phenomenon? Could that happen here what you're describing? Or are there more checks and balances in our system than in Italy?

Alexander Stille: Well, I think the thing that makes Berlusconi a really interesting, important figure is, that he crystallizes -- in a very dramatic way -- problems and issues that exist in all modern democracies now. In every society, including ours. Money, media, and political power are very closely connected. And the figures you mentioned, are all part of the trend in which people have figured out that the ability, let's say, to buy TV time and bypass the usual filters between the public and political figures, are very powerful devices that people can use to attract attention, attract voters. And get influence in our society.

In Italy it exists in a much kind of nuder and cruder way. But, I think people everywhere, and this country as well, have a very dismaying feeling that politics is going over their heads, is being decided by wealthy interests that don't take them into consideration. And are bending the legislative process in their own behalf. And so, I think Berlusconi is a very sort of interesting canary in the coal mine for all of us. He shows the way in which these issues can crystallize in a very powerful way.