or
http://tinyurl.com/32dmtp7
NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Key Architect of FCC Govt Takeover of the News
By Tara Servatius
10/25/2010
NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Key Architect of FCC Govt Takeover of the News
Last week, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller took a break from
her crusade for a government takeover of the media to swat a fly. With
now-former NPR analyst Juan Williams suitably splattered across the
evening news after politically incorrect comments he made on Fox News,
Schiller can return to her real passion – the creation of a national
network to ensure that in the future, you get your news from the
government in general and NPR in particular.
Schiller could barely contain her rage at Fox News and at Williams last
week, saying he should discuss his fear of boarding a plane with Muslim
passengers with "his psychiatrist." Those who understand what is at
stake saw the Williams/Schiller dust up for what it really was – a
declaration of war by one of the most powerful women in journalism
against for-profit, non-liberal media. If Schiller and her liberal
friends have their way, Fox and its viewers will pay the bill for her
new government news network.
As Schiller explained in a speech to the NPR board of directors in 2009,
it is public radio's responsibility to fill the gap in journalism left
by dying local television stations and newspapers.
Schiller, a former New York Times executive, is one of a few dozen power
players working with the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal
Trade Commission and a leftist group called Free Press to "reinvent
journalism." That's how the FTC describes it. The FCC calls what they
are doing the "Future of Journalism." Free Press, a think tank funded by
leftist billionaire George Soros, among others, calls it "the new public
media."
It's all the same thing, a plan to take over local news coverage from
for-profit television, radio and print media, which Schiller and her
friends claim is in danger of extinction. These "friends" get together
regularly with the heads of the FCC and FTC to brainstorm the details in
government and congressional meetings. These meetings include the
leaders of all the country's public broadcasting outlets, including PBS,
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and American Public Media.
They are beefing up their staffs in local news markets with herds of
public news reporters to "take over" coverage as commercial media fails.
Nationwide, this will cost $40 billion to $60 billion over a decade,
they believe. Their plans, according to the FCC's Future of Media
report, are to raise this money by taxing for-profit news organizations
– the ones whose reporting Schiller is supposedly trying to "save." They
want to charge "spectrum fees" of five percent of broadcast station
revenues for use of the public spectrum and airwaves, which the
government controls. They figure that could bring in $1.8 billion a
year. A one percent tax on all electronic devices like cell phones,
televisions and laptops could bring in billions more. So would a monthly
fee on internet subscriptions.
While conservatives were busy arguing that NPR should be defunded in the
wake of the Williams debacle, Schiller was putting the finishing touches
on the national infrastructure NPR has launched to deliver this new
government news product to cities across the nation. A decade ago,
defunding NPR would have sufficed. To stop Schiller now, Republicans
would have to defund PBS and CPB as well to have any hope of torpedoing
her plans to build a nationwide news delivery system in the style of the
BBC, but on steroids. Schiller imagines a national public print,
television and radio news leviathan that would compete with the top five
news companies in the news industry.
"We can create a national network around all of public radio that
provides the kind of public service that is being not provided by other
media companies that are suffering," Schiller told Cyberjournalist.net.
Never mind that her planned confiscation of their revenues will cause
them more suffering and possibly send them to an early death.
Schiller calls her creation the Public Media Platform, and the left is
very excited about it. It's a digital network in partnership with all
the nation's public news providers, built to distribute their news
locally, regionally and nationally. NPR has already built a
state-of-the-art internal "wire" service in the style of the Associated
Press to carry and distribute the news. The Corporation for Public
Broadcasting funded seven multi-million dollar regional journalism
centers with news teams to produce and distribute the new public news
product.
Finally, NPR's Project Argo has launched news sites at 12 NPR stations
in major cities staffed with local reporters. That's where Soros's
recent $1.8 million donation to NPR comes in. Those are start-up funds
for the reporters to generate the public news product.
A May Free Press report describes NPR's Public Media Platform as a first
step in their plans for a government media takeover. The platform is in
the early stages, and its purpose is to attract billions more in
government funding. "We are going to strengthen and bolster our
representation to Congress and to other entities that can help fund all
of us," Schiller told the NPR board in her 2009 speech about a public
media takeover of news reporting.
All of this makes Schiller's very public drop-kick of Williams far more
than a hissy fit that got out of hand. It was a declaration of war
against commercial media in general and Fox in particular. Who wins will
be determined by what voters do at the ballot box in the coming years.
Tara Servatius
Tara Servatius is a writer and radio host from North Carolina.
------------------------------------
Report any problems, suggestions or abuse to
Individual-Sovereignty-owner@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Individual-Sovereignty/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Individual-Sovereignty/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
Individual-Sovereignty-digest@yahoogroups.com
Individual-Sovereignty-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Individual-Sovereignty-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment