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http://www.freepress.net/news/8601
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050616/OPINION/506160305/1002

Managing the news media

If these cuts are enacted, it will mean the end of public broadcasting as
we've known it. That would be a huge victory for the White House, which
has effectively cowed or co-opted most of the commercial media...

From Indianapolis Star, June 16, 2005
(owned by Gannett Co., Inc.)

By Sheila Suess Kennedy

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Kennedy is associate professor of law and public policy at the Indiana
University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis.
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I'm old enough to remember being dubious when, in 1967, Congress created
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

There were two reasons for my lack of enthusiasm: my belief that funding a
.competitor. to private-sector news sources that seemed perfectly adequate
was not a proper function of government; and my suspicion that any such
enterprise would inevitably become a propaganda organ for whatever
administration was in power.

I was wrong on both counts.

The firewall that was established to prevent the CPB from being
politicized has worked well, as evidenced by periodic howls from
government pooh-bahs, Left and Right.

Currently, despite efforts by Karl Rove and the Bush administration to
portray public broadcasting as elitist and unbalanced, polls continue to
show PBS with 80 percent approval ratings. In recent opinion surveys,
Americans resoundingly rated PBS unbiased and balanced.

Nor did public broadcasting simply duplicate what was available elsewhere.
It was conceived as an alternative to commercial outlets, and for most of
its existence, that.s what it has been . a place to hear a wide variety of
viewpoints on issues often ignored by other broadcast media. These days,
that alternative, trustworthy voice has become absolutely essential.

If the quality of our democratic institutions and the quality of our
journalism are interdependent, as many of us believe, recent trends in
commercial mass media are disquieting indeed. Media consolidation has
accelerated enormously; it has been estimated that just five
mega-corporations own and control the vast majority of the world.s
commercial news outlets . radio, television and print.

These media monopolies are first and foremost businesses, focused upon the
bottom line. Newsroom staffs have been ruthlessly cut; instead of
independent reporting, everyone just parrots the same two or three
sources. Pundits have replaced the news anchors whose jobs included actual
reporting. More and more, especially in the electronic media, journalism
has become .infotainment..

Powerful corporate owners also feel no compunction about enforcing
ideological correctness throughout their empires. There have always been
partisan news outlets, but they were less dangerous when they had to
contend with a wide variety of other voices in the marketplace of ideas.
The concentrated character of today.s commercial media ownership is what
makes the most recent assault on public broadcasting so dangerous.

In a May 16 speech to the National Conference for Media Reform, Bill
Moyers spoke of .the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and
punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests
uncomfortable..

That was before a House subcommittee approved a 25 percent cut in the CPB
budget for next year and a complete phase-out of funding after that.

If these cuts are enacted, it will mean the end of public broadcasting as
we.ve known it. That would be a huge victory for the White House, which
has effectively cowed or co-opted most of the commercial media and made no
secret of its displeasure with PBS. But it will be a real defeat for those
who care about accountability in government and our already impoverished
public discourse.

# posted by newshare @ 10:08 PM