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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: FAIR Steve Rendall srendall@fair.org Tel: 212-633-6700 x13 |
Tell PBS: Bring Back Now! 'Need to Know' Fails to Live up to PBS mission
NEW YORK - October 22 - It's official: Need to Know
has failed to pursue the kind of hard-hitting reporting, full of diverse
perspectives, that was regularly supplied by the shows it replaced, Now and the Bill Moyers Journal. Now Friday night on PBS looks a lot like the rest of public television's prominent news and public affairs shows--which, as FAIR's new studies have documented, means a pronounced tilt towards white male sources and a miniscule number of activists or public interest advocates.
That's a far cry from the intended mission of public broadcasting--to
"provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be
unheard," to serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," and
broadcast programs that "help us see America whole, in all its
diversity." The things that Moyers and Now did.
When PBS announced without explanation that it was cancelling Now, just as Moyers was retiring, FAIR activists encouraged PBS to "develop new programming that will be just as tough and independent" as the Journal and Now.
Since the new show falls short of that goal, PBS should bring back the program that did exactly what public television should be doing, and restore Now to its original one-hour timeslot.
As a matter of fact, Now will return on November 18 with a
special one-hour broadcast devoted to local communities and economic
innovation. That's a start. But how about giving viewers this kind of
journalism every week?
It would be wonderful if every program on PBS lived up to the mission of public broadcasting. Let's start by bringing back Now.
Click here to sign FAIR's petition today!
5 Comments so far
Show AllOnce Moyers Journal left the air, I stopped watching PBS.
PBS? maybe we should call it RBS as in rupert's broadcast system. even better, TDS as in tax dodger syndicate. read here:
http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/08/tax-dodging-helps-murdoch-buy-the-journal/
this month pbs had planed to air TOP SECRET AMERICA, an exposé of a huge network of behind the scenes spy agencies, so secret they don't know what they're doing. we know a few like xe but apparently thousands have top secret clearance and congress assumes the consent of those governed. unfortunately, by executive decision the broadcast has been postponed till the 12th of never or at least till after these midterms.
gee, an informed public could disrupt the smooth working two-party system that makes the u.s. the envy of the world!
PBS - does that stand for Pubic or Prostituted Broadcasting Systems?
Fire the management at NPR. They have lost all credibility. They have used Bill Moyer's retirement as an opportunity to dummy down it's "news analysis?", offering the same kind of homongenized crap that the corporate media has been offering. Then the management descends into politically correct thought policing, as evidenced by its firing of Juan Williams because he dared to speak a somewhat embarressing truth about moslems getting of airplanes. If we're honest, even the most politically correct amongst us, have a quick, 1 second pause, given that the terrorist that have attacked us an seek to attack up are almost all fanatics who wrongly profess islam. That little bit of humble, honesty results in getting fired??? Sounds like Red China in the early years under Mao. Yes, NPR needs to clean house and fired the management.