Moyers Addresses PBS Coup

[struggle4progress]

<snip> That wasn't a hard sell. I had been deeply impressed by studies published in leading peer-reviewed scholarly journals by a team of researchers led by Vassar College sociologist William Hoynes. Extensive research on the content of public television over a decade found that political discussions on our public affairs programs generally included a limited set of voices that offer a narrow range of perspectives on current issues and events.

Instead of far-ranging discussions and debates, the kind that might engage viewers as citizens, not simply as audiences, this research found that public affairs programs on PBS stations were populated by the standard set of elite news sources. Whether government officials and Washington journalists (talking about political strategy) or corporate sources (talking about stock prices or the economy from the investor's viewpoint), public television, unfortunately, all too often was offering the same kind of discussions, and a similar brand of insider discourse, that is featured regularly on commercial television.

Who didn't appear was also revealing. Hoynes and his team found that in contrast to the conservative mantra that public television routinely featured the voices of anti-establishment critics, "alternative perspectives were rare on public television and were effectively drowned out by the stream of government and corporate views that represented the vast majority of sources on our broadcasts."

The so-called experts who got most of the face time came primarily from mainstream news organizations and Washington think tanks rather than diverse interests. Economic news, for example, was almost entirely refracted through the views of business people, investors and business journalists. Voices outside the corporate/Wall Street universe -- nonprofessional workers, labor representatives, consumer advocates and the general public were rarely heard. In sum, these two studies concluded, the economic coverage was so narrow that the views and the activities of most citizens became irrelevant. <snip>

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/22021/

[paineinthearse]

1. Coulter addresses Moyers addresses PBS coup

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20050525.shtml

What left-wing PBS bias?
by :puke:Ann Coulter

May 25, 2005

Bill Moyers, the lamented, demented former host of the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers," referred to the American-led war in Iraq as doing "to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us." He called American flag pins "a little metallic icon of patriotism" comparable to Mao's Little Red Book being displayed on every Communist Party official's desk in China. This is silly. The metallic icons of patriotism that Mao used to keep the masses in line were considerably longer and sharper, and were usually applied to the back by a fellow "comrade."

Moyers denounced Condoleezza Rice for her ineptness in not preventing the 9-11 attack, despite a clearly worded memo stating: "Bin Laden determined to attack the United States." In other breaking news: Waitress in L.A. Determined to Become Actress. As Condi said, "I don't think you, frankly, had to have that report to know that bin Laden would like to attack the United States." In his lengthy diatribe against Rice, Moyers said she had cried wolf, intentionally misleading "America and the world about the case for invading Iraq." Apparently Rice had said Iraq was "a part of the war on terror" on the grounds that Saddam was: (1) supporting terrorists, (2) a weapons of mass destruction threat and (3) "a tremendous barrier to change in the Middle East."

But as regular viewers of PBS know, in fact, we invaded Iraq for oil.
Yes, precisely. That's why U.S. forces seized Iraq's oil fields right after Baghdad fell, confiscated their vast oil reserves, and now we can buy all the gasoline we want here at home for just pennies a gallon any time we want. Sorry, we what? Folks, my switchboard is completely lit up and this isn't even a radio show. Moyers responded to the 2002 midterm elections in which Republicans bucked history by gaining seats in both the House and the Senate by warning Americans of the coming Rapture: "f you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture." As Moyers described the horror that was to come: "That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives."

I'm pretty sure even the harshest anti-abortion laws would only prevent a woman from killing her baby, not send her to a slave labor camp. But with his broadcast career crashing down around him, Moyers took a brave stand against the internment of pregnant women. Moyers also said the agenda of the coming theocracy "includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich." (And we'd appreciate it if you poor people would fold the bills a little more neatly before mailing them in next time.) As the extra little cherry on top, all Moyers' nut conspiracy theories were being broadcast on PBS, subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. Not only that, but Moyers takes a cut of every video of his show sold, and he has family members on the payroll. Let's see now: a corrupt, partisan demagogue and his family caught feeding at the taxpayers' trough. Let's just hope he never took a free golfing trip to Scotland!

more......