Day: 10/19/2010

Sign The DROP FOX Petition From Media Matters

Posted by on October 19, 2010 at 4:07 pm. 5 Comments :

Glenn Beck - There Will Be BloodMedia Matters is partnering with People for the American Way to apply some of that free market pressure on the companies who are sponsoring Glenn Beck’s crusade of terror.

Petition to tell major advertisers to DROP FOX!

This petition is in response to a recent event wherein a Beck fan, Byron Williams, was taken into custody after a shootout with police. Williams told the officers that he was on his way to kill people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation after having been “informed” by Glenn Beck of their evil, un-American activities.

Subsequent to Williams’ arrest Beck has actually escalated his attacks on the Tides Foundation and others despite the obvious risk that his rhetoric poses. As David Brock of Media Matters says…

“Instead of recognizing the danger and taking appropriate action, Fox News is allowing and encouraging Beck’s violent rhetoric, abdicating the responsibility the public expects of a powerful broadcaster. That is why targeting Glenn Beck’s advertisers is no longer enough — we need to hold the entire network accountable.”

It is time to tell major advertisers to DROP FOX!

Please take a moment to sign the petition and then tell your friends. The campaign to get advertisers to stop placing ads on Beck’s show has been phenomenally successful with respect to persuading almost 300 advertisers to pull their ads. He is now sponsored by a motley crew of Gold peddlers, senior services, disaster profiteers, and other News Corp enterprises (who, of course, don’t pay).

However, there has not been much effect on Beck’s bosses at Fox News and News Corp who are arrogantly ignoring the voice of their viewers and their advertisers in order to persist in broadcasting irresponsible and dangerous content on their programs. That’s why it is so important now to make our voices heard in the upper floors of the Fox hierarchy. Don’t put it off. Sign the petition now. It could literally save lives.

PBS: A Bastion Of Conservative, White, Corporatist, Men

Posted by on October 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm. 3 Comments :

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has just released a study detailing the diversity, or lack thereof, on PBS programs. The narrow scope of opinion and representation is pretty disturbing. Here are some of their findings.

PBS Be More

  • The NewsHour’s guestlist was 80 percent male and 82 percent white, with a pronounced tilt toward elites who rarely “go unheard,” like current and former government and military officials, corporate representatives and journalists.
  • Viewers were five times as likely to see guests representing corporations (10 percent v. 2 percent) than representatives of public interest groups who might counterweigh such moneyed interests–labor, consumer and environmental organizations.
  • While Democratic guests outnumbered Republican guests nearly 2-to-1 in overall sources, Republicans dominated by more than 3-to-2 in the program’s longer format, live segments.
  • On segments focusing on the Afghan War, though polls show consistent majorities of Americans have opposed the war for more than a year, not a single NewsHour guest represented an antiwar group or expressed antiwar views.

PBS is a frequent target of right-wing critics who attempt to spread the myth that the media is liberal. The proof of the contrary is evident in statistics like these. And further evidence is found in the leadership of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the source for the majority of oversight and funding of PBS. The CPB’s President is Patricia Harrison. She is a former chair of the Republican National Committee and was personally selected for the job by the former chairman of CPB, the irrepressibly corrupt Kenneth Tomlinson.

These Bush appointees formed the cornerstone of the most politicized public broadcasting infrastructure in its history. They presided over the accumulation of conservative programming and made the work of legendary journalists like Bill Moyers infinitely more difficult. Moyers is no longer with PBS. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as surprise to see the stark imbalance that is now ingrained in the network’s core programming.

Harrison’s tenure will be ending next year. Let’s hope that President Obama appoints a more credible and fair steward for our public broadcasting system.