Trying to get rid of PBS and NPR

Did you happen to forget we have a Republican president and a Republican majority in congress? The big political news in a situation like that is generally going to be made or have something to do with one republican effort or the other. It's just like that for the democrats when there is a democrat majority in gov't. Did you not listen to NPR during Clinton's first term?

If the news you hear makes republicans look like jackasses you can't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message. Many of the news stories I hear on NPR I don't see in private mainstream news sources.

Why shouldn't our tax dollars go to a public service like public radio? Why should private intrests dictate what and all the news we receive? We deserve a news organization that isn't only out there to make money.

 

I did hear NPR during the clinton admin, and they really let a lot of s*it slide (Kosovoe, Somalia, Croatia, Whitewater, ad nauseum). Clinton STILL deployed the military more than Bush. I didn't hear a damn thing about it from NPR. I'm not even talking about all the lewinsky bs, either. You may hear what you want, and I surely hear what I want. But I listened to them out of curiosity, and I never heard one thing negative about kerry. In an election year. non-profits, tax-supported organizations are supposed to be neutral. Of course, I guess they really are, since, there really is no difference between the democrats and republicans. But I want to hear the WHOLE STORY. That's all. If they get tax dollars, they should report corruption, stupidity, and mistakes on the part of both parties. No one should get a pass. Better yet, they should make NO DISTINCTION between the two parties. Then they would be telling the facts.

 

obviously.

 

So am I to infer that you've added your name to many an internet petition?

 

I signed and told a few others about what is going on with NPR and PBS. Everyone I know grew up with PBS and I still watch PBS when I'm stoned a lot of times... haha, gov't stoner television. I also love the music specials like austin city limits and the concerts they have. They show Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival on there. It's great. I also get sick of mainstream radio and like to listen to radio shows, folk, bluegrass, jazz, and blues music on NPR. I remember when I was going through North Carolina with my dad once, we listened to a radio show that played Chet Atkins and Merle Travis for about an hour. Haha, I love that stuff.

 

Did anyone hear about the attemptied banning of the Postcards With Buster episode that had a lesbian couple in it? The head of the dept. of education wanted to ban it, but PBS allowed the local PBS branches to decide for themselves.

Yes, there definately is a liberal bias. I think that's because the viewers tend to have a liberal-leaning mindset in the first place.

But I LOVE pbs and npr. They keep me sane.

 

Then why should my tax dollars go to fund a mass-communication vehicle with a bias that I may or may not agree with? I realize my tax dollars go to hundreds of things I do not agree with, but if people REALLY want PBS, et al, to exist, why don't THEY cough up the dough to keep them around? Personally, I don't like the idea of government-funded broadcast media of ANY kind.

 

they are pointless huh??????

well here ya go:::
In an unexpected move yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives approved a measure to restore $100 million of funding for NPR, PBS and local public stations.1 Republican leaders were proposing to slash $200 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but you helped stop them.

Everyone said it was impossible to reverse any of the House cuts with Republicans in control. Yesterday's Washington Post described the divide between Democrats and Republicans like this:


"[O]n Capitol Hill, it's hard to find a Republican with anything nice to say about National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting Service. Instead, they denounce them as liberal and elitist, when they bother to talk about them at all."2

Public broadcasting shouldn't divide Republicans and Democrats. More Americans trust NPR and PBS for balanced news and children's programming than any commercial network.3 Yet many Republicans have been intent on either gagging or starving public broadcasting.

So why did 87 Republicans break with the majority of their party and vote to restore the funding? In large part, because over 1 million of you signed the petition calling on Congress to reverse course. And over 40,000 of you made phone calls to your elected representatives. There was a surge of public outrage that couldn't be ignored. This victory was possible because we were joined by Free Press, Common Cause and strong allies in the House—Representatives Markey, Obey, Lowey, Dingell, Hinchey, Watson, Schakowsky, Blumenauer, Eshoo, Slaughter, and Leach, a brave Republican.

Despite this incredible progress, the House Republicans did manage to cut over $100 million, including funding for children's programming like "Sesame Street." We'll take our fight to the Senate when it considers the budget later this summer. But yesterday's vote makes it much more likely we can restore every last cent for NPR and PBS by acting together.

Yesterday also brought darker news in the fight for public broadcasting. The Republican-dominated board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) hired a former Republican National Committee chair as the next president, injecting partisanship into the very organization designed to shield public broadcasting from political meddling.4 This is only the latest effort by White House ally and CPB board chair Kenneth Tomlinson to remake public broadcasting as a partisan mouthpiece. To save NPR and PBS, we'll need to take on Tomlinson, but today we showed that the public can and will defend public broadcasting from partisan attack.

For now, we have a lot to be thankful for. Our kids can keep learning from PBS' children's programming. We can keep enjoying public broadcasting's in-depth, trustworthy news and cultural offerings. Most of all, we can be thankful for the ability of ordinary people to band together and do extraordinary things.

Thank you, for all you do,

 

That's good news, and should be a lesson to all those nay-sayers that think petitions don't do any good. Hopefully they will be able to get all their funding back.