Turning PBS into another propaganda tool

For those of you who didn't read the recent NY Times coverage on the changes being made at PBS and NPR, or even for those of you who did, this following speech from Bill Moyers tells the story of what sort of trouble America is heading towards.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/051805Moyers.shtml

Bill Moyers, another heroically defiant victim of The Big Bad Right.

What a laugh.

That Moyers is not an abrasive and boorish ideologue is true, but it is equally true that he is an idealogue. The notion that Public Television, in general, does not push an ideology is on the one hand humorous, but on the other indicative of Moyers prejudice that ideologues only come in the abrasive and boorish varieties (i.e. John Dean).

When watching Moyers, it is easy to be persuaded that his pleasant voice and earnest face are the marks of a simple seeker of truth, but when his words are written down, it is easier to see that they are the words of an ideologue.

Being an idealogue is not such a bad thing, but an idealogue who denies his nature and in the same breath castigates his kindred is at best disingenuous.

I suppose that if one is absolutely certain about something and yet the public, in general, doesn't share in that certainty, it is understandable that one would either question the cognitive functions of the public or declare that some sort of conspiratorial cover-up is at work.

It is the mark of extremists that they see the actions of their opponents in the most extreme of lights.

"fair & balanced" Finn writes;

"The notion that Public Television, in general, does not push an ideology is on the one hand humorous, but on the other indicative of Moyers prejudice that ideologues only come in the abrasive and boorish varieties ..."

Making PBS as "fair and balanced" as Fox
Critics blast the CPB's unprecedented move to hire competing, "Crossfire"-style ombudsmen, saying the move is intended to make public broadcasting toe a right-wing line.


By Eric Boehlert


Tomlinson was among those who greenlighted the creation of PBS's "Unfiltered" last year to provide an additional conservative platform on public television.

Fittingly, the show served a useful purpose for Tomlinson on the May 13 broadcast, where he continued to make the unsubstantiated -- and unchallenged -- claim that PBS suffers from a liberal bias and that programs like "Now" do "a lot of damage to public television."

The claim is unsubstantiated because the CPB's own internal polling -- surveys it has refused to release independently -- shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not think PBS has a liberal bias.
As for the "damage" caused by "Now," the program generated exactly 24 angry e-mails to the CPB during calendar year 2003.

Yes. The Tree of Good and Evil is on the balcony of his condo.

I know what you mean. Snideness and meaning...are two things.

Correct. That would be three.

You liberals really know your addition.

If Yan can make millions acting like a poorly integrated immigrant, so can you!

Perhaps this link which I found in a different topic (possibly in the Internatl News section) should be of use to this debate.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/pressurvey/pfs2005.pdf

I think you can trust it. It's nonpartisan, it claims to be nonpartisan and if not, you can sue it for false advertising.

But you know what I see going on in this debate that's really cr*p? All this, "you liberals" and "you neo-con" BS, as if you were all finely tuned to one ideology or the other.

To those who claim they are conservatives:
Scepticism about the validity something that does not agree with your world view, whilst acceptance of anything that does agree as valid, is no good.

To those who claim they are liberals:
Name calling is childish. Granted, you are not the only ones who do it, but to stoop down to such level is degrading and unwarranted. Not all liberal policies are the best idea.

To everyone in general:
Are you sure this bias is actually there? If it is, are you sure the bias is PBS trying to push a liberal ideology or PBS trying to cater to a majority liberal audience?

in other words, are you confusing cause and effect?

Wolf
You raise some very good points but before I waste any time debating you, let me ask you a question: How much of this thread have you actually read? For example, have you read my post regarding "advocacy journalism" on page 32. I haven't noticed your name before and you may be like JTT, who likes to accuse others of avoiding the issures but when the "issues" and opposing arguments are presented, he/she will not respond.

After you give me your opinions on the advocacy journalism "thing" then come back and we'll talk about cause and effect.

The Church of Bush

By Rick Perlstein, Village Voice. Posted August 2, 2004.

These are the people who, even in the face of evidence of his casual cruelty, of his unchristian contempt for weakness, of his lying ways, see something angelic in George W. Bush and love him unconditionally.

Here are some things that Christopher Nunneley, a conservative activist in Birmingham, Alabama, believes. That some time in June, apparently unnoticed by the world media, George Bush negotiated an end to the civil war in Sudan. That Bill Clinton is "lazy" and Teresa Heinz Kerry is an "African colonialist." That "we don't do torture," and that the School of the Americas manuals showing we do were "just ancient U.S. disinformation designed to make the Soviets think that we didn't know how to do real interrogations."

Chris Nunneley also believes something crazy: that George W. Bush is a nice guy.

It's a rather different conclusion than many liberals would make. When we think of Bush's character, we're likely to focus on the administration's proposed budget cuts for veterans, the children indefinitely detained at Abu Ghraib, maybe the story of how the young lad Bush loaded up live frogs with firecrackers in order to watch them explode.

Conservatives see it differently.

CONTINUED AT,

http://www.alternet.org/election04/19425/