Behind Romney's Bid To Kill Big Bird - A Sloppy Wet Kiss To Corporate Media and Right Wing
While much has been made of Romney's promise to kill PBS, little has been said of the reason why Romney decided to target such a relative insignificant part of the federal budget as means to close the $6 trillion hole caused by his proposed tax cuts. The answer is that Romney's move is not budgetary in nature, but yet another attempt to (1) support his corporate backers and (2) limit media perspectives to those dependent on corporate advertising dollars.
1. The fact is that corporate media ownership has grown through the years such that only a few conglomorates own the numerous media outlets:
2. The descrease in a diversity of ownership has lead to a corresponding decrease in diversity of perspectives:
3. Therefore, Republicans have been outspoken in their efforts to kill PBS in order to further slant the media in support of right wing ideals. In addition, perhaps Romney hopes that the corporate media will more favorably cover his campaign in light of gift of the head of Big Bird as a sacrifice on the alter of corporate hegemony:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/budget-debates-begin-republicans-put-npr-pbs-chopping/story?id=12915626
One of Newt Gingrich's first acts as speaker of the House in 1995 was to call for the elimination of federal funding for CPB, and for the privatization of public broadcasting. Neither attempt was successful, though it did keep the hot-button issue in the limelight for years.
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In 2005, a House subcommittee voted to drastically cut CPB funding, and eliminate all of it within two years, a move many blamed on Tomlinson himself.
"Republicans have never been fond of public broadcasting. Republicans have always thought that public broadcasting across the board is liberal, is not particularly supportive of Republican and conservative points of view," Sterling said. "Democrats tend not to think that, unless they're from very conservative districts."
