This post is like Iraq. It attracts everybody who wants to fight.

what I wanna know, is where's the Forum Admin on this?

Isn't this very nearly exactly what they wanted to stop???

Anyway, I say lock, lock it up tight. And be done with it.

Dave

:::So, what's the solution? Maybe we need these corporations to say "we will subsidize our news program from our other programming, but we will do it right. It's okay that our news department is doing good reporting but not making any money".:::

I think this would be an extraordinary experiment. A return to the days of yesteryear when broadcasters understood (however reluctantly) that they were using PUBLIC airwaves, and if they were gonna make money they were also gonna have to use some of that bandwidth to serve "the public good." Whatever that is.

What am I trying to hide?

Ok if you must ask... I'm Blind.

I thought I felt some rythmic vibrations a couple of times, but I never suspected it was you.

But Hah! -- For all of you sniveling Vegas complainers -- try using it blind and see how much sympathy you get for your meager quirky problems and difficulties.

--- pause ---

Ok, a tastless lie. Sorry. I just couldn't think how else to respond.

My sincerest appologies to all the real blind people (particularly any Vegas editors) that I might have offended with that foolish spoof.

But in all honesty, Buster, was there ever a hint that should have tipped me about your terpsichorian tendancies?

[edit]
why didn't I say, "tipped me TO your terpsichorian tendancies"?
Better, huh?

For me, I suck at dancing even more than at politics.

>>There were just interviews with people who had voted for Bush in 2000, but were not voting for him in 2004.
<<

I'm one of them. Everybody makes mistakes.

I have enjoyed watching this discussion from the sidelines. Never seen such a well-informed and civil discussion of this topic. Spot pointed that out too.

Glad I wasn't involved. I tend to resort to name calling and repitition of various forms of one idea that is clearly right because I believe it. So it would be more like the actual election process than what has happened here.

Nice job of old-school civil debate guys. Do ya think there is any way this could catch on? Nah, I didn't think so either.

>>
what I wanna know, is where's the Forum Admin on this?

Isn't this very nearly exactly what they wanted to stop???

Anyway, I say lock, lock it up tight. And be done with it.
<<

It's borderline. Of course nobody is forcing you to read it.

But the big distinction from the horrible threads that led to the need for changes, is that nobody is arguing with each other on a personal basis. Everything has been sharing of information that is rather subjective and controversial, but nobody has begun to attack each other on a personal level.

I think that kind of stuff was what took a lot of the notorious threads into realms that most everyone felt was not good.

This forum has always tolerated off-topic threads pretty well. I applaud the hosts for that level of tolerance. If you go back to the beginning of this one, you will see comments explaining about why it is marginally on-topic. I'm glad they let it go so long. I learned a few things along the way. Wish there were more discussions like this one during the time leading into the last election. I got plonked by several people in one usenet group and that never happened before. Oh well.

The good news is that fights didn't break out. I'm sure it would have been killed long ago if they had.

I enjoyed this thread too, and I learned a new word--terpsichicorian.

I also had wanted to be post #150, but missed by a couple. Darn.

There is always Canadian media for when we want to understand what is happening in the U.S. :O):

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor

The article author of course has an opinion, but he uses some high level U.S. sources that I haven't seen quoted with these statements in the U.S. media, although I could certainly have missed it. Anybody else?

Edit: fixed broken link, sigh.

That's a new word for me too. However, Google has it as terpsichorean.

In a wierd coincidence, I was in the same room with a couple folks mentioned in this thread. My wife writes about food so I went with her to the Big Apple BBQ Block Party this weekend. They shut down 3 blocks of Madison Ave and bring in some of the best barbecue pitmasters from around the country. NYC has been a pretty poor town to have BBQ until recently. The reason was space. NY is so cramped that if you are going to be smoking meat your upstairs neighbors are going to pretty mad. However barbecue has something of a renaissance in NY recently. About ten years ago the first authentic Texas Barbecue joint to open in NY could not meet the clear air rules for Manhattan and was located out in Queens. It's only recent the technology has improved where you can have a smoker without too many emissions. Danny Meyer, the owner of the premier barbecue restaurant in Manhattan, Blue Smoke, tried for years to be able to open real barbecue place before they could get it right. (Another challenge they faced, was they are located in a 15 story building and a chimney that high creates an enormous updraft and thus gets the flames too high and the temperature too hot to cook barbecue.) Meyer has a bunch of high-end restaurants in NY and this event was his brainchild. In addition to bringing some of the best barbecue in the world to the street of NYC, he wants to educate people about barbecue, so there were a bunch of seminars on barbecue. My wife wanted to go to a couple of the seminars and I was there for the ribs and the brisket, so I didn't pay attention to which ones she chose. So on Saturday I sat in on panel discussion on Texas barbecue that included none other than Dan Rather. If that wasn't funny enough, we went to another discussion that was supposed to inclued the author of Smokestack Lightning, but he got sick. His replacement was the former editor of the NY Times who was dismissed because of the Jayson Blair scandal. Rather said that for the best barbecue in the country was in Muttley's neck of the woods. He said just draw a circle around Austin, TX with 150 mile radius. Rather was on the panel because heis in a new documentary called Barbecue, A Texas Love Story. The film appears to be bipartisan because the filmmakers have a campain to get George W to see their film.

I actually had no intention of resurecting this thread except that it is looking like Public Television and Radio is about to go the way of the other disgraceful media sources.
In a June 9 Washington Post article, Paul Farhi wrote that former Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chairwoman Patricia de Stacy Harrison is the "leading candidate" to become president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While the reporter wrote that Harrison is CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson's "favored candidate" and that both are Republicans, he failed to mention that Harrison's current role in the State Department, where she manages efforts to openly promote Bush administration policy around the world, potentially undermines her fitness to lead an organization created to protect against political interference.

The CPB is an agency created by Congress in 1967 expressly to give public broadcasting "maximum protection from extraneous (political) interference and control." In a previous article about Tomlinson, Farhi wrote "How, some ask, can a man so intimately involved in the Bush administration's efforts to polish its image put politics aside when it comes to running the CPB..." (May 20, 2005), But Farhi did not report that Harrison has been at least as involved as Tomlinson in "the Bush administration's efforts to polish its image."

Here is what the article included:
1. Harrison is Tomlinson's "favored candidate."
2. "Harrison's candidacy comes at a time when Tomlinson has stirred controversy by attacking PBS as having a liberal bias in its programs."
3.Harrison "has praised the work of the department's Office of Broadcasting Services [OBS], which in early 2002 began producing feature reports, some coordinated by the White House, that promoted the administration's arguments for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq."
4.In her 2004 testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, "Harrison said the Bush administration regarded these 'good news' segments as 'powerful strategic tools' for swaying public opinion."

Here is what the article left out.
1. Harrison has overseen the production of government-produced "news" segments, shown both domestically and abroad, intended to promote Bush administration policy, raising questions about her fitness to lead CPB, which aims to promote objective news programming. As acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, a political appointment she assumed in 2004, Harrison oversees the Bureau of Public Affairs and, therefore, the work of the OBS. The OBS produced 59 news segments "with close editorial direction from the White House." according to an article in The NY Times. Many of the reports concerned U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and were "widely distributed in the United States and around the world for use by local television stations." Some taken directly from the US State Department talking points to promote the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Last August she and Tomlinson testified before Congress regarding public diplomacy that "close working relationship with the Broadcasting Board of Governors" and commended several of the BBG's initiatives, including Radio Sawa, Radio Farda and the television station Alhurra, which she said "are reaching broader audiences with innovative and unbiased programming. Because of these initiatives, our country is now being presented in a much more honest context in regions where our media presence is vital." During her testimony, Harrison also disclosed that she represents the secretary of state at the BBG meetings chaired by Tomlinson.
3. In a New York Post article on August 8, 2000 Harrison said she "got involved in politics during the Reagan Revolution, when she was so moved after hearing Ronald Reagan speak for the first time as President that she volunteered to raise money for him in New York" And according to a Boston Globe article dated April 25, 1995... She later chaired the Republican National Committee's (RNC) Victory '92 Fund and went on to fund-raise extensively for Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. She co-chaired Dole's finance committee when it accepted $80,000 in contributions from employees of Empire Sanitary Landfill, a waste management company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The company was later indicted for illegally funneling contributions to numerous federal campaigns and paid an $8 million penalty, the largest Federal Election Commission fine in history. The Dole campaign was reportedly the biggest beneficiary, having received $80,000 of these contributions while the Clinton-Gore campaign received $10,000 in illegal contributions (Washington Post, 4/25/96).
4. In 1997, Harrison's many years of hard work for the Republican Party led to her election as co-chairwoman of the RNC. During her four years in the post, she repeatedly attacked the Clinton administration, which she referred to as "the little White House of horrors" according tp the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/30/97. In particular, she targeted then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the months preceding her 2000 New York Senate campaign. "I hope to be spending as much time as possible in New York if she runs," Harrison said at the time (The Journal News, Westchester County, New York, 6/4/99).

Sad news indeed. C-Span will be next.

John

If you can see the conservative bias in Fox, but can't see the liberal agenda in PBS new programming, then you are not watching with an objective eye. Fox News DOES have a conservative slant. PBS DOES have a liberal slant.

Why should the government fund PBS? It is a very strange anachronism, which goes back to when there were only three or four stations in even the largest markets (the 1950s). The government felt a need to provide programming that this small number of stations could never provide.

Now we have hundreds of channels on cable and satellite. Why do we waste MY money producing programming when I can get EVERYTHING that PBS provides on other channels (A&E, Bravo, History Channel, Discovery, etc.). I used to love watching Dance in America (my wife is a ballet dancer), but we get far better dance material on DVD and on some of the other channels I just mentioned.

I too, hope that CSPAN I & II don't go away. However, no other channel is duplicating their content, and they are in the business of broadcasting government business, so I doubt they will be axed.

Back to PBS, and in particular their news programs which I gather is your main concern.

Do you REALLY want government providing the news ???? Brrrrr ... that makes me shudder.

Regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power, I don't want the government involved in any way in telling me what is going on. I find that scary. Can you spell Pravda? The time for PBS to go was a long time ago -- long before GWB was pres, or there was any question about liberal or conservative bias. As for the content, I can GUARANTEE that the good stuff will be picked up by other channels, and that will include the newscasts. They might change somewhat, just like Siskell & Ebert did when their show moved from PBS to commercial television, but some of those changes would have happened anyway as the show evolved. If PBS news is to hold its audience when it moves to other channels (which it will), they will have to maintain the elements that matter -- including the liberal bias that regular viewers like (don't get mad, the same applies to the Fox News lineup, if it were to transfer to a new owner).

PBS DOES have a liberal slant.

I thought several thorough and non-partisan studies concluded after going over their programming, that there was no liberal bias?

Here is one example (actually two commissioned simultaneously): Nationwide surveys

Excerpt:
The Public Broadcasting Act directs CPB and its board to solicit public comment regarding how well we are meeting our obligation to ensure objectivity and balance. For this reason we commissioned two polling firms – the Tarrance Group and Lake Snell Perry & Associates – to conduct a nationwide survey and a series of focus groups to further explore this issue. The studies demonstrate that the majority of the U.S. adult population does not believe that the news and information programming on public broadcasting is biased. The plurality of Americans indicate that there is no apparent bias one way or the other, while approximately one-in-five detect a liberal bias and approximately one-in-ten detect a conservative bias.

I agree that it may be time for PBS to get weaned off federal funding though, in favor of membership contributions, and as has happened already, more commercials.

The end-of-program commercials have gotten beefier and beefier, and now the only difference is that the commercials run beween programs instead of breathlessly every 7 1/2 minutes.

PBS DOES have a liberal slant.
============
As I pointed out in many posts above using specific examples with documentation, the media is covering for the Bush administration and broadcast in varying degrees to the right. If by comparison PBS is not to the right that does not make them "liberal" as that term has become abused to the point that it's meaning is no longer understood.

PBS depends upon public as well as corporate donations to survive. When Harrison is appointed many of the public donations will begin to dry up as many like myself will no longer be members or provide donations. I called Thirteen this morning to express my concerns and was told there have been a barage of similar telephone calls. The average PBS viewer and listener is better informed about what is going on than the network viewers are any day of the week.

I really don't understand these statements John:
======
[Do you REALLY want government providing the news ???? Brrrrr ... that makes me shudder.
Regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power, I don't want the government involved in any way in telling me what is going on. I find that scary. Can you spell Pravda? ]
============

Especially since that is, in fact, the reason for my concern. It is the political ties and conflicting government held positions of the soon to be president (Harrison) that makes me shudder. I don't understand why it wouldn't make you do the same particularly in light of your statement.
=======
"my wife is a ballet dancer"
========
Now that's cool.

Regards,

John

The average PBS viewer and listener is better informed about what is going on than the network viewers are any day of the week.

If that is true, I doubt that PBS plays a very big part. I would assume that their viewers would be more likely to read the newspaper every day, etc., and that explains being better informed. Think about it: Even with no commercials, and even with a much longer amount of time devoted to each subject, PBS (or any TV show) can only cover a small fraction of the issues, especially compared to print media. Anyone relying only on TV is not going to be "better informed." Therefore, if the PBS audience really is more "tuned in," it doesn't come from tuning into PBS.

the media is covering for the Bush administration and exist in varying degrees to the right. If by comparison PBS is not to the right that does not make them "liberal" as that term has become abused to the point that it's meaning is no longer understood.

The general electronic media (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN) is NOT covering for Bush. I have seen the previous posts making this claim and they are "prima facia" false. I say this because every network covers every story. While some of them don't chase after every kook conspiracy theory, such as that document referred to in a previous post (I can't even remember the name, but is was the one reported in a UK publication), there is another explanation other than the silly theory that ALL the media are in Bush's pocket. The more logical explanation is that the story is wacky and not worth reporting.

Also, some people only seem happy when their favorite ox gets gored. There certainly were a lot of these on the other side of the equation when Clinton was in office.

The press' natural adversarial role doesn't mean that they have to expose a new scandal every day in order to be doing their job. That belief is something that started after Watergate when the adulation accorded Bernstein and Woodward made every reporter believe that their main goal in reporting was to expose rather than report.

I assume that you hate Fox News with a passion, and I assume you don't like their old slogan "fair and balanced" (I don't much like it either). However, their newer tag line gets the whole thing exactly right: "We report, you decide." If any media outlet can do exactly that, and limit themselves to reporting, and then let you make the decisions, then they are doing their job. Back to the original topic of this post, most of the electronic media have done an amazingly poor job of doing this job and instead believe that they must be advocates.

Finally, if anyone really believes that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, et al are rooting for Bush, just read the transcripts. Here's a link to the latest CNN transcript of a typical evening news half hour:

CNN June 10,2005 Transcript

I just read this and I sure don't see any Bush cheering leading. In fact, just the opposite. For example, one reporter parrots a favorite line from the Kerry campaign last fall when she describes: "Well, one of the interesting moments, Suzanne, was when President Bush tried to show that he understands the nuance in dealing with North Korea." Not to parse too closely here, but "tried to show" indicates that he tried and failed, and using it to describe his ability to deal with "nuance" is exactly the charge leveled by the opposition in the election. This is not the thing done by lackeys or cheerleaders. This isn't an isolated quote that I lifted from this transcript. I could take any transcript from any network and go through it and find dozens of such items in every report. For those who care to spend a moment, click on the link above, read the political portions of the transcript and make your own decisions. Is this the transcript of a news report that is gushing Bush's praises?

I provide the links; you decide.

If all good programming shifts to Cable, then low-income people who can't afford cable or DVDs will be shut out. Also I think the regional flavors of America in broadcasting without PBS. Look at what happened with commercial broadcasting, local programmers got wiped out and now from Mississippi to Idaho a lot of music broadcasts are programmed out of LA.

Even when commercial channels duplicate PBS's subject matter, has cable ever come up with something like Ken Burn's Civil War or Ric Burn's New York? Or even regular programming like American Experience?
I think when PBS gets it right, the quality is not easily matched. If the History Channel were to attempt the Civil War series, would it be able to come up with the same budget that PBS did? Would all the experts who agreed to appear in the film, do so if it was for the History Channel?

Anyhow the point is moot for at least the next few years. Defunding PBS is so 1994. Using PBS to fund the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board or Tucker Carlson is where is at right now. The argument to defund PBS won't have serious momentum until the Republicans are out of the White House again. Another interesting thing that Tomlinson did is two hire two ombudsdmen. Now an ombsbudman is suppossed to be the viewers'/listeners' representative. The CPB, itself, does not have listeners or views. An ombudsman is intended to be neutral and objective. So why hire two people? It's to undercut the idea of objective facts and leave questions of truth unresolved in the "He said-She-said" dynamic I mentioned earlier. Why do I say that? Well Tomlinson has now denied saying that he wants a "liberal ombudsman" and a "conservative ombudsman," but we know that of the people he hired is an avowed conservative that Tomlinson used to work with, so he knows that guys views. Even if the other ombudman is neutral or liberal or centrist or whatever, there will be a "PBS ombudsman" conservatives can point the next time the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal "lie without consequence" or "ruin people for sport" to quote a famous suicide note.

Harrison does not come from a broadcasting background before working for the Republican National Committee she was in public relations and lobbying.
Tomlinson had Mary Catherine Andrews doing work for the CPB when she still on the White House Communications staff. She claims to have writing the guidelines for hiring the CPB ombudsmen

Mary Catherine Andrews when she was still working for the government when she was hired write the guidelines for hiring these new ombudsmen. She claimed to write the guidelines on her own time.

While some of them don't chase after every kook conspiracy theory, such as that document referred to in a previous post (I can't even remember the name, but is was the one reported in a UK publication), there is another explanation other than the silly theory that ALL the media are in Bush's pocket. The more logical explanation is that the story is wacky and not worth reporting.

Now that what is called the "Downing Street Memo" is gaining more steam, let's mention that it is not a kook conspiracy theory. It's a record of the minutes of a meeting of the highest levels of the British government. Downing Street is the British equivalent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The meeting is the equivalent of a "principals meeting" for the US government. That is, all the top and important players were there. It and now several subsequent documents were released to the Times of London. The Times of London is not a liberal paper. It is owned by,,,,Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox News. The memo is not a theory at all, it is a record of the comments of the British government during a meeting on War with Iraq in 2002. The occasion for the meeting the head of MI6 (Britain's CIA) was back from a visit to the US and he was briefing the British Cabinet what he was told.

I think people are reading WAY too much into the Memo. Michael Kinsley is about as liberal as they come, and he said basically that while he's happy to see the Memo get the Left all energized, there's really not much there.

This thread is taking longer and longer to load, but maybe we can break the record. What IS the record, by the way?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050614/ap_en_tv/tv_michael_jackson_2;_ylt=AjGoPOqScn4cmiach7PmZ96ZGA4B;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Seems we arent the only ones noticing this vicious trend with Ms. Nancy (dis)Grace.

This thread has been great reading. I don't want to add unnecessarily to the length of the thread, so I'll just say that if you are interested in reading more about these issues, check out these links:

www.prwatch.org
www.fair.org

No!!!!!!!!!

I just spent an hour answering John's post and researching links and Zone Alarm's internet lock made me lose it ALL.

That's it for me for today.

John

I just spent an hour answering John's post and researching links and Zone Alarm's internet lock made me lose it ALL.

You have my heartfelt condoleances.

I used to be familiar with this feeling until I started always copying the text to the clipboard before submitting.

It's saved me from having to take anger management classes many times... :O)

There are many other reasons why the post could get lost during the submit process, including site outages, CGI problems, other firewalls croaking, etc., etc.

Well,
Here was a small part of it.


However, their newer tag line gets the whole thing exactly right: "We report, you decide." If any media outlet can do exactly that, and limit themselves to reporting, and then let you make the decisions, then they are doing their job
=======
I am sure you aren't suggesting that Fox does that. They are the easiest to tear apart because what they do is blatant.
=========
Finally, if anyone really believes that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, et al are rooting for Bush, just read the transcripts. Here's a link to the latest CNN transcript of a typical evening news half hour:

CNN June 10,2005 Transcript

I just read this and I sure don't see any Bush cheering leading. In fact, just the opposite. For example, one reporter parrots a favorite line from the Kerry campaign last fall when she describes: "Well, one of the interesting moments, Suzanne, was when President Bush tried to show that he understands the nuance in dealing with North Korea." Not to parse too closely here, but "tried to show" indicates that he tried and failed, and using it to describe his ability to deal with "nuance" is exactly the charge leveled by the opposition in the election. This is not the thing done by lackeys or cheerleaders.
==========
Yes you ARE reading into it. Here's why. You omitted the rest of her statement which read : "He referred to its leader as Mr. Kim Jong Il, a sign of respect." Now for argument's sake let's say that she omitted the word "tried" that you found fault with. Here's how it would read.

"Well, one of the interesting moments, Suzanne, was when President Bush SHOWED that he understands the nuance in dealing with North Korea. He referred to its leader as Mr. Kim Jong Il, a sign of respect."
By saying it THAT way she would be saying that by Bush's referring to Kim Jong Il as "Mr.", he was showing that he understands the nuance in dealing with North Korea. How lame would that sound? Even for Dana Bash.

Now in your "providing the links, you decide", I read the whole thing and near the bottom Carlos Watson (CNN political analyst) stated:

WATSON: Well, you know, what Democrats are worried about what Howard Dean is saying, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. But there's a world in which they should be more worried about what Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, is actually doing. In particular, Suzanne, he's very smartly and very ably figuring out what consumers are doing, from what beer they buy, are they buying Coors Lite or are they buying Bud Lite, to what kind of sports they watch on TV. Are you watching college football or pro football? And using all of that information, putting it in a database, and based on that, deciding what kind of mailer he should send out to you in order to get you to vote for his candidates, or who should knock on your door, or when they should call you, or how often they should call you.
And when you hear that, you say, well, OK, I'll tune in in 2006, maybe 2008. But the reality is that Ken Mehlman is not waiting for that in order to implement his microtargeting strategy. He's been using these local and special elections in places like Nebraska, a city council race, state senate race in Missouri, and even a blue state like New York, in order to win four out of six major special elections. So there's more to worry about in the RNC maybe than what Howard Dean is actually saying. ]


Carlos Watson is saying that instead of the Democrats worrying so much about what Howard Dean said in his inappropriate reference to Republicans "never having worked a day in their lives", they should instead be concentrating on campaigning for the 2006 and 2008 elections like RNC chairman Ken Melman is so "very smartly and very ably" doing.

In addition to Watson's obvious boost to the viewers for Melman by using the phrase "very smartly and very ably", when you watch the DNC meetings on C-Span (unedited) it is clear they are:
1. Actively campaigning in most states for those elections and
2. Not obsessing over what Howard Dean said.
3. Blaming the media for obsessing over what Howard Dean said by using the answer by a few Democrats to the media question:
"Don't you think that what Howard Dean said about Republicans is hurting the Democrats"
To which a few answered:
"Well, he doesn't speak for me"

And running with it by suggesting that The Democrats are scared they will lose in 2006 and 2008 because of Howard Dean and that's all they (The Democrats) can think about.

John