SAVE PBS NOW
From an e-mail I received today from FreePress.net:
(By the way, you should all sign up for their mailing list - They don't send out junk, only important activist issues from time to time).
"Congress has turned a deaf ear to the public and taken the next step to unplug PBS and NPR.
Last night, a House committee voted to halve funding for public broadcasting -- cuts that are so drastic that they will decimate public television and radio stations across the country. We stand to lose the educational, news and cultural programs that Americans trust above all others.
In the past week, nearly one million Americans have signed petitions to stop Congress from taking this action against PBS, NPR and other public media. Tens of thousands more have joined mass call-ins urging representatives to restore funding. But our elected officials have ignored the outcry.
It’s time we pried open the doors of power and demanded to be heard. Free Press is taking this campaign beyond point-and-click petitions directly into the chambers of Congress. It is with your personal stories that we guarantee that politicians WILL take notice:"
Write a letter to Congress asking them not to cut funding from PBS and NPR.
Here is the message I sent:
Dear Congress,
I write to you now not only as a media student at Brown University in Rhode Island, but also as an intelligent American citizen who loves the root-principles of his country - the first, and foremost of which is the "inalienable right" of Free Speech. I, therefore, wholeheartedly denounce any attempt to cut government funding for the reputable and, indeed, necessary American institutions that are PBS and NPR.
The advent of mass-media has created a legal grey-area in the conjunction of public airwaves and private enterprise. In other words, though the airwaves are public, the only information widely broadcast over these airwaves that is actually public is what is broadcast by PBS and NPR. This is because the vast majority of broadcasters operate on a commercial basis, and therefore their existence depends on the corporate advertising market. This results not only in programming that is fully influenced, if not dictated, by private corporations, but also in broadcasts that are overrun, more and more, with hypnotic and unwholesome commercial messages. This holds true for supposedly "independent" news channels.
PBS and NPR operate mostly without corporate sponsorship, and therefore they are able to air programs that are in the public interest, not that of private corporations. This means that PBS and NPR are bastions of truly Free Speech in a broadcasting world of powerfully silencing payoffs and hierarchy. Without strong government funding, these fundamental media institutions will deteriorate to the point of ruin.
I will not stand by and let one of the pillars of a free American society be chopped in half for politically ideological purposes. There are many who share this commitment with me. If you choose to ignore our numbers now, the backlash from such a measure, if passed by our congress, will surely show them to you. Indeed, the resulting outcry would be a victory for Free Speech in itself, and perhaps the communal outrage would spur the public to develop even more politically controversial public mass-media outlets. This is United States of America - I implore you to choose public freedom over politics.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Tyler Henry
Brown University '07
Tyler Henry
248 Williams St.
Providence, RI 02906
(By the way, you should all sign up for their mailing list - They don't send out junk, only important activist issues from time to time).
"Congress has turned a deaf ear to the public and taken the next step to unplug PBS and NPR.
Last night, a House committee voted to halve funding for public broadcasting -- cuts that are so drastic that they will decimate public television and radio stations across the country. We stand to lose the educational, news and cultural programs that Americans trust above all others.
In the past week, nearly one million Americans have signed petitions to stop Congress from taking this action against PBS, NPR and other public media. Tens of thousands more have joined mass call-ins urging representatives to restore funding. But our elected officials have ignored the outcry.
It’s time we pried open the doors of power and demanded to be heard. Free Press is taking this campaign beyond point-and-click petitions directly into the chambers of Congress. It is with your personal stories that we guarantee that politicians WILL take notice:"
Write a letter to Congress asking them not to cut funding from PBS and NPR.
Here is the message I sent:
Dear Congress,
I write to you now not only as a media student at Brown University in Rhode Island, but also as an intelligent American citizen who loves the root-principles of his country - the first, and foremost of which is the "inalienable right" of Free Speech. I, therefore, wholeheartedly denounce any attempt to cut government funding for the reputable and, indeed, necessary American institutions that are PBS and NPR.
The advent of mass-media has created a legal grey-area in the conjunction of public airwaves and private enterprise. In other words, though the airwaves are public, the only information widely broadcast over these airwaves that is actually public is what is broadcast by PBS and NPR. This is because the vast majority of broadcasters operate on a commercial basis, and therefore their existence depends on the corporate advertising market. This results not only in programming that is fully influenced, if not dictated, by private corporations, but also in broadcasts that are overrun, more and more, with hypnotic and unwholesome commercial messages. This holds true for supposedly "independent" news channels.
PBS and NPR operate mostly without corporate sponsorship, and therefore they are able to air programs that are in the public interest, not that of private corporations. This means that PBS and NPR are bastions of truly Free Speech in a broadcasting world of powerfully silencing payoffs and hierarchy. Without strong government funding, these fundamental media institutions will deteriorate to the point of ruin.
I will not stand by and let one of the pillars of a free American society be chopped in half for politically ideological purposes. There are many who share this commitment with me. If you choose to ignore our numbers now, the backlash from such a measure, if passed by our congress, will surely show them to you. Indeed, the resulting outcry would be a victory for Free Speech in itself, and perhaps the communal outrage would spur the public to develop even more politically controversial public mass-media outlets. This is United States of America - I implore you to choose public freedom over politics.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Tyler Henry
Brown University '07
Tyler Henry
248 Williams St.
Providence, RI 02906
posted by Sturgeon General at 4:25 PM
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