The Armstrong Williams NewsHour
Scary stuff going on behind the scenes in public broadcasting these days. I don't normally talk politics here, but this New York Times op-ed piece about the current goings-on at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting directly affects what you may be seeing on television in the future.
That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.
6 Comments:
Here's a simple solution I think everyone can agree on: Get rid of government-sponsored TV altogether. (Talk about an anachronism.) Then left-wing cranks like Bill Moyers could blather away to their hearts' content without anyone saying boo, and people like me wouldn't have to fund their doing do.
Not to mention all the Yanni concerts.
Much as I enjoy the offerings of public television past and present, I'd rather see it shut down entirely than to see its continued existence as a propaganda machine. Of course, that's what the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created to prevent, but . . . .
"Much as I enjoy the offerings of public television past and present, I'd rather see it shut down entirely than to see its continued existence as a propaganda machine."
Which, if I'm following this correctly, you *don't* think it's been for a good twenty or thirty years?
How about NPR? Just wondering.
I think there's a world of difference between the obvious (social) liberal bias (as I recall, most NPR listeners are fiscally conservative and socially liberal) that has dominated NPR for the last 20 years and the sort of hijinks we've seen coming out of the Bush administration. Jeff Gannon and Armstrong Williams are just two egregious examples of disturbing propaganda efforts. I'm honestly worried about the state of journalism and the free press in this country -- not that NPR/PBS represents the independent press, but if we're going to have it we should make honest efforts to keep it from being The Administration Channel.
I don't want to get too far drawn into this because this isn't a blog about politics, but I want it to be clear: I'm drubbing the Bush administration for its methods, not its ideologies. If the men in power now really were conservatives in the traditional sense of the word, I think the U.S. would be a different place right now.
That's true, although it's true in the other direction as well. 'Liberals' (progressive, I guess they're calling themselves now) have abdicated traditional, classic Liberalism, and thus the creation of the 'neo-conservative,' who have moved in the direction of the Republican party as the Democrats basically won't have them. A classic Liberal would support a war that deposed a horrible tyrant and be willing to, in the words of one such, "pay any price, bear any burden" to see a strong democracy established in the Middle East.
Anyhoo, I'm in somebody else's house, so I'll retire from the field at this point.
Sorry, one more; Armstrong was a stupid no-no for the White House, and they readily admitted as much. However, Jeff Gannon was nothing of the sort. Anybody can apply for a White House news daypass, and Gannon was one of hundreds of folks from all sorts of forums of all political stripes that recieved one. I mean, reporters from The Nation regularly get these. Certainly saying he was part of a 'disturbing' 'propoganda' effort is a bit much.
Post a Comment
<< Home