Dear Amy Harlib:
In an historic speech on Sunday, legendary television
journalist Bill Moyers blasted Kenneth Tomlinson of the Corporation of
Public Broadcasting (CPB) for launching a partisan witch hunt at PBS and
called for a series of town hall meetings across the country.
"I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or
Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to
carrying it out for the White House," Moyers told a packed room at the
National Conference for Media Reform. "And that's what Kenneth Tomlinson
has been doing."
You can now watch or listen to Moyers' entire speech on the
Free Press Web site:
An audio recording can be downloaded at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/moyers.mp3
Or you can watch the video at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/freepress-closing40515.mov
Transcript online (as soon as it's available) at www.freepress.net/conference.
In his first public statement since the controversy at PBS
emerged, Moyers endorsed a call by media reform groups for a series of
town hall meetings nationwide so that Americans can speak directly to
station managers and policymakers about what they want and expect from
public broadcasting.
More than 50,000 Americans have already signed the Free
Press petition calling on Kenneth Tomlinson to resign and demanding that
the public be put back into PBS.
Please add your name to the petition by clicking www.freepress.net/action/pbs.
"That great mob that is democracy is rarely heard, and
that's not just the fault of the current residents of the White House and
Capitol," Moyers said. "There is a great chasm between those of us in the
business and those who depend on TV and radio as their window to the
world. We treat them too much like audiences and not enough like citizens.
They are invited to look through the window, but too infrequently to
participate and make public broadcasting public."
Please support Bill Moyers, public broadcasting, quality
journalism and democracy by signing
the petition and passing along this message to everyone you know.
Onward,
Robert W. McChesney
Free Press
www.freepress.net
P.S. The conference was a rousing success. Visit www.freepress.net/conference
for audio and video recordings of the sessions, new episodes of "Media
Minutes" and news reports. New content is being added daily.
You ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) are
receiving this message as a subscriber of the Free
Press E-Activist list. To discontinue receiving messages, please visit
www.freepress.net/action/unsub.php.