Free Republic

TRENTON — State officials issued layoff notices to 130 workers at the New Jersey Network today, marking the latest step in the dismantling of the public television and radio network. It was the most visceral signal yet that NJN, which has served New Jersey for 41 years, is on its death bed. If nothing dramatic happens before Jan. 1, the network could go dark. Last March, Gov. Chris Christie proposed ending the state subsidy to NJN and cutting its employees from the state payroll, saying New Jersey could no longer afford to be in the television business. Though the outlook...

Congress awarded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) $533.3 million in fiscal year 2010, $420 million of which was distributed to public radio and television stations in all 50 states and U.S. territories, according to the CPB Appropriation Request and Justification report. Taxpayer money for the CPB is allocated through the Department of Commerce. According to the CPB report, 583 public radio and television stations nationwide received $420 million in FY 2010. For example, KQED TV in San Francisco received $3,734,192 and KCET TV in Los Angeles got $4,066,328 that year. WAMU, the public radio station in Washington, D.C., received...

Government spending is out of control and President Obama’s method of throwing more money at our economy is not working. Federal spending cuts need to start somewhere, and there is no better place than a program that can survive on its own. American taxpayers are subsidizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to the tune of over $420 million dollars in 2010 alone. CPB is the parent company of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the National Public Radio (NPR) radio networks. CPB has requested $608 million for their next funding cycle that begins in 2013. Congress continues to appropriate...

Inspired by Saul Alinsky, FCC 'Diversity' Chief Calls for ‘Confrontational Movement’ to Give Public Broadcasting Dominant Role in Communications Wednesday, August 26, 2009 By Matt Cover (CNSNews.com) – Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a “confrontational movement” to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC. Lloyd expressed his regulatory call to arms in his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America” (University of Illinois Press). In the...

Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do. Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press. Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters. The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress...

Taxpayer-funded PBS journalist Bonnie Erbe has some advice for Democrats: politicize the 2010 Census, then use the biased numbers to jam pack Congress full of left wing wackos. “Depoliticize the Census?” PSB “journalist” she wrote in her blog at US News & World Report. “Surely they jest!” “The Census is part of the spoils of victory.....

An internal Justice Department investigation released Monday has concluded that senior officials broke the law by hiring immigration and other officials based on partisan considerations. The report — issued by the inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility — culminates an investigation that lasted more than a year, stemming from the firing of seven U.S. attorneys in one day in 2006. The report focuses on some of the senior officials in the circle of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Specifically, the report names senior counselor and White House liaison Monica Goodling and Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Both...

CBC Unplugged The CBC 'won't look much like it does today' when this government's done with it. Here's a sneak peek of what the Tories may be planning The Western Standard Cyril Doll - Monday,11 September 2006 There are few cultural events broad enough in their appeal and sufficiently potent in resonance to unite Canadians coast to coast. Christmas almost gets there. Canada Day? Not quite. But each Saturday night at 7 p.m., from October until April, there's one event that brings together Canadians from St. John's to Victoria. Since Foster Hewitt first shouted out to radio audiences, "Hello,...

Much to the dismay some members of the taxpayer-supported Public Broadcasting System (PBS) bigwigs and Hollywood's far left entertainment community, President Bush has nominated a staunch conservative to serve on the PBS board just a year after another conservative was forced to resign as board chairman because he was accused of injecting partisanship into the agency. Warren Bell, an ABC sitcom producer who the Los Angeles Times reports describes himself as "thoroughly conservative in ways that strike horror into the hearts of my Hollywood colleagues," also contributes to the online edition of the conservative National Review magazine. Getting necessary approval...

WASHINGTON — To Jay Kernis, senior vice president of programming at National Public Radio and a founding producer of "Morning Edition," the darkest moments in the network's 36-year history probably came in 1983, when it was just days away from running out of money and had to be sustained with emergency transfusions from its member stations and from federal grants.

OTTAWA, February 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “Naked Guy,” “Dog Balls,” and “Ball Waxing,” are archived sample clips of sexual programming available from Canada’s publicly-funded broadcaster, the CBC.  A CBC television program called Nerve, which formerly aired after school at 5:30pm Mondays, is described by blogger Joel Johannesen as a means to promote as normal such things as transsexualism, homosexual lifestyles, sado-masochism, same-sex “marriage” and a pre-occupation with anything sexual.On line archives of the show highlight some of the bizarre examples of the former program.  Two shows in particular are sexual kinkiness involving what Johannesen estimates are teen males.  One is a...

MND EXCLUSIVE The following is an *exclusive* advanced copy of a letter sent to Pat Mitchell, the President and CEO of PBS. The letter, signed by 20 interested individuals and organizations, confronts PBS on its recent broadcast of "Breaking the Silence." November 2, 2005 Pat MitchellPresident & Chief Executive OfficerPublic Broadcasting Service1320 Braddock PlaceAlexandria, VA 22314 Dear Ms. Mitchell: PBS at one time enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for accurate and high-quality documentary programming. It is therefore not only sad but shocking to see a respected media outlet lower itself and journalistic standards with “Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories.” This...

Part of New Orleans's southern charm comes from its green canopy of live oak trees. Many of those trees have been standing in water for more than a week, depriving their roots of oxygen. (this is lead-in. Audio .wav file of the report at NPR site)

Rush transcript of NPR's Neil Conan, speaking by phone with Cindy Sheehan: NC: Very nice of you to be with us today. CS: [cheerfully] Oh, thank youuu! NC: I know that you were, uh, out in California last week because your mother was ill. How’s she doing? CS: Um, she’s doing better. They’re trying to keep her from having another stroke. And if she doesn’t have another stroke, she should be able to recover. NC: That’s good news. Now, tell us, a little bit about your son, Casey. CS: My son Casey was an amazing human being. He was gentle,...

A panel of 36 distinguished public policy experts and scholars—ranging from Nobel laureate Milton Friedman to Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey—has selected the Internal Revenue Code as the No. 1 item on this year’s Human Events list of the Ten Most Harmful Government Programs. The programs elected by our judges don’t just cost money, they also attack our values and corrode the spirit of liberty that makes America the greatest nation. As in previous years, we initially asked our judges to nominate programs for the list. The judges were then sent ballots listing...

War waged over public broadcasting July 21, 2005 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Sen. Arlen Specter, a busy man with multiple duties, was understandably unprepared July 11 as he chaired a rare Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing about public television. When he asked whether there was an opening statement for him to read, the subcommittee staff director replied there was none but handed him questions. Therein lies a behind-the-scenes story about public air wars in Washington. The hearing's purpose was to grill Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, Corporation for Public Broadcasting board chairman, about hiring two consultants in his campaign against liberal bias...

Paul Duke, whose storytelling skills and journalistic evenhandedness set the tone for the venerable public television show "Washington Week in Review," has died of leukemia, his former employer WETA-TV said Tuesday. He was 78. Duke died Monday at his home. He was already a political news veteran — having worked for The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and NBC — in 1974 when he began his two-decade stint as the show's moderator. Now called "Washington Week," the Friday night program featuring journalists discussing the week's news is the Public Broadcasting Service's longest running news program. In a recent essay...

It's time to take the public out of the Public Broadcasting Service. That is, it's time to cut taxpayer-funded broadcasting loose and let it compete.... Conservatives have long charged PBS with liberal programming bias. Now liberals are claiming that congressional Republicans are trying to influence programming and personnel. Those charges got louder with the naming Thursday of former GOP co-chair Pat Harrison as president and chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.... This came after 16 Senate Democrats — including New York's Chuck Schumer and both Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey — called for the dismissal...

In a move seen as a Republican attack on public broadcasting and its "liberal bias,” a GOP-controlled House subcommittee has voted to cut federal funding for public television and radio nearly in half. The move would eliminate a $23 million federal program that helps underwrite popular children’s shows such as "Sesame Street” and "Postcards From Buster.” Also, the subcommittee voted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides a portion of public broadcasters’ funds, beginning with a 25 percent cut in CPB’s budget for next year – from $400 million to $300...

A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster." In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million. In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created...