MrTia

i really enjoy public broadcasting, although i think that it actually performs a role for government, by moderating and controlling leftist voices. there's a damn good reason why so much of the underwriting for NPR is from lockheed martin and other weapons manufacturers -- control the funding and you control the message. the weapons makers are smart -- they know that owning NBC helps them control the attitudes of the vast huddled masses, but helping fund NPR gives them influence over a small but politically active demographic that otherwise might cause them quite a few headaches. on our local CPB radio station they do an, actually quite likeable and interesting show called "homeland security: inside and out," which from beginning to end to me reads like a love letter from the new inside-the-beltway security/war economy culture to the old leftist guard. i think there are countless examples of this on NPR/CPB/PRI.

there's an excellent, if sometimes rather slow, book by someone stone saunders (carol?) called "the cultural cold war" that outlines CIA efforts to co-opt leftist media after world war ii in liberated europe. it was intended to control and corrale leftist opinion in western europe so that it didn't start bending toward marxism and provide an opportunity for soviet expansionism to reach further west than berlin. it's an interesting tactic and i think it's still at work now.

i sound a little paranoid, maybe. :P i actually don't necessarily think this institutional control of NPR is a bad thing, i still like NPR and listen to it constantly and they do excellent coverage. but there are definitely some political realities they will not touch. i bet they will never do a real story on peak oil, for instance, or the 2002 coup attempt in venezuela.

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The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
-- Bruce Lee