Activists mapping campaign for pubcasting independence
Originally published in Current, April 5, 1999
Leading media reformers of the progressive stripe are organizing a new group, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, to campaign for a pubcasting system beholden to neither politicians nor business.
CIPB is hiring an executive director and an associate director to open a Washington office [text of ad] and recruiting a national advisory board that will include "recognizeable names," says Jerold Starr, a member of the organizing committee. The group has arranged funding, contingent on successful completion of its first steps, he told Current.
Organizers include Jeff Cohen, executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR); Jack Willis, longtime public TV executive now associated with George Soros' Open Society Institute; University of Wisconsin communications historian Robert McChesney; William Hoynes, author of the 1994 book Public Television for Sale; and Starr, a West Virginia University sociologist who has served as a leading critic of WQED, Pittsburgh.
Starr has written what may become a central document for the group--a book to be published this spring by Beacon Press in Boston--Public Broadcasting in the Public Interest: How to Make Public Broadcasting Accountible to Your Community." The book describes issues and tactics from long-term struggles with San Francisco's KQED, WQED and pubcasting stations elsewhere.
The CIPB project won unanimous endorsement March 26 at the third national meeting of the Cultural Environment Movement, a media reform group founded by communications scholar George Gerbner, according to Starr. CEM will publicize CIPB's campaign. Starr spoke at the CEM meeting, held in Athens, Ohio, as he did at meetings of the Media and Democracy Congress in 1996 and 1997.
Starr is encouraged by a national poll--released in January by other media reform groups--that found strong support for a law that would require commercial broadcasting companies to help support public broadcasting. [earlier article]. Nearly eight in ten of the sample agreed that broadcast companies should be tapped for 5 percent of their revenues, according to the Benton Foundation and the Project on Media Ownership.
"We sense widespread dissatisfaction with the present drift of public broadcasting into commercialism, and the continued inaccessibility to independent producers and the local public," Starr said.
Classified ad published in Current, April 5, 1999
Executive Director
Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, Washington, D.C.
Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, a D.C.-based nonprofit to promote restructuring of US public broadcasting as an independently-funded public trust, free from corporate and government pressure, seeks founding Executive Director. Candidate must be experienced coalition-builder and media-savvy advocate with knowledge of public broadcasting and passion for the cause. Legislative or public interest lobby background helpful but not required. Salary (plus health benefits) $50 - $80K, depending on experience. Candidates for Associate Director ($35 - $40K plus benefits) also sought. People of color/women urged to apply. Send resume/cover letter to: CSSE, Job Search, 901 Old Hickory Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15243. Fax: (412) 341-6533. No phone calls please.
Earlier news: Poll finds that public endorses spectrum fees.
Outside link: Save WQEX web page, associated with Starr's campaign in Pittsburgh.
Web page created April 17, 1999
Corrected May 2, 1999
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