[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 38 (Monday, March 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1592-S1593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PUBLIC-FUNDED RADIO AND TELEVISION
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have been around Congress a few years.
When I served in the House of Representatives 16 years ago, the
Republicans won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
They promised to change how business was done in Washington and they
elected Newt Gingrich of Georgia as Speaker of the House. On his first
day on the job, Speaker Gingrich addressed a black tie dinner of happy
supporters and took aim at an enemy he said was undermining America's
values, and that enemy was Big Bird.
Newt Gingrich denounced public broadcasting as a sandbox for the rich
and he condemned it for ``eating taxpayers' money.'' He went on to say:
``They are simply enclaves of the left using your money to propagandize
your children against your values.''
Once the Gingrich Republican revolutionaries finished passing their
so-called Contract With America, Gingrich vowed he would do everything
in his power to do away with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
National Public Radio, and the Public Broadcasting Stations.
Fortunately, in the Republican and Democratic parties, cooler heads
prevailed. Big Bird was spared.
Well, to borrow a line from former President Reagan, ``Here we go
again.'' When we should be talking about the serious budget deficit
affecting America, the House Republican budget spent too much time
resurrecting the old bumper stickers of the past. They went to
America's bumper sticker museum and said: Well, let's see if there are
some oldies but goodies here, and they loaded up the Republican budget
bill with a lot of old issues. Some of them finally went back to the
day when Newt Gingrich went after Big Bird. Sixteen years after Newt
Gingrich, this new band of Republicans in the House is once again
denouncing public broadcasting as a hotbed of subversive values, and
they have vowed to pull the plug.
You may remember, Mr. President, our friends across the aisle
actually tried to end funding for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting last November during the lameduck session. At that time,
the rallying cry was outrage over NPR's firing of commentator Juan
Williams. Now there is a new defunding effort underway and a new source
of outrage. James O'Keefe, a rightwing activist with a video camera and
a conservative agenda, released a video last week which he claims
proves National Public Radio is a biased liberal organization that
needs no Federal funding.
In the video, two allies of Mr. O'Keefe's pretend to be members of a
Muslim education group who are considering making a large donation,
they said, to NPR. Then they secretly recorded their meeting with two
NPR executives.
If the name James O'Keefe rings a bell with Members of the Senate, it
should. Remember some of the other things he was caught doing? It was
James O'Keefe and his colleagues who posed as telephone repairmen and
tried to lie their way into the office of our colleague, Senator Mary
Landrieu of Louisiana. They were going to try to make one of their
``gotcha'' videos there. They went too far. At the end of it, Mr.
O'Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of entering Federal property
under false pretenses. A Federal judge sentenced Mr. O'Keefe to 3 years
probation, a fine of $1,500, and 100 hours of community service.
This same Mr. O'Keefe, in 2009, posed with some of his friends as a
pimp and prostitute to secretly film a discussion with staffers of the
grassroots antipoverty group ACORN. Their video of that meeting was so
inflammatory Congress vowed to eliminate all Federal funding for that
group.
I cannot tell you, Mr. President, how many amendments we had on the
floor of the Senate--in the midst of all the problems we were facing in
the country and around the world--focused on ACORN. Three separate
investigations, incidentally, later cleared ACORN of any wrongdoing. A
report by the Congressional Research Service found Mr. O'Keefe's
undercover videotaping may have broken laws both in Louisiana and
Maryland.
Mr. O'Keefe, obviously, is not too concerned about breaking a law if
he thinks he is going to come up with a sensational video. He was
convicted in Louisiana, as I mentioned earlier.
The New York Daily News--not exactly a liberal news organization--
concluded, when it came to the ACORN incident, ``they edited the tape
to meet their agenda.'' As California's then-Attorney General Jerry
Brown said, after they investigated the ACORN video:
Things are not always as partisan zealots portray them
through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a
fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor.
Mr. O'Keefe appears to be engaged in creative editing again, and this
time his target is National Public Radio. That is not just my opinion.
The Web site of none other than FOX News' own Glenn Beck--that is
right, Glenn Beck--compares the edited and unedited versions of Mr.
O'Keefe's latest video and concludes that the edited version appears to
be deceptively edited in order to portray statements by one of the
secretly recorded NPR executives out of context. An example: On the
video, Ron Schiller, who was then in charge of fundraising for NPR, and
has since been terminated, is heard to say:
It is very clear that we would be better off in the long
run without Federal funding.
I have heard that repeated over and over; that this NPR fundraising
executive said ``we would be better off if we didn't have Federal
funding.'' The far right has seized on this statement as proof NPR
doesn't need it and shouldn't get it. But here is the part that ended
up on the cutting room floor. Schiller explained, when they looked at
the full transcript, that most ``philanthropists'' think NPR is almost
fully funded by the government, which prevents many of them from
donating. Mr. Schiller also said that if NPR lost all Federal funding
now, ``we would have a lot of stations go dark.''
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports nearly 1,300 local
radio and TV stations in communities all across America--in Illinois
and I bet in West Virginia. Direct support for those stations makes up
nearly 75 cents out of every dollar they spend. I know, because when
you turn them on to listen to the news, they are begging for money. You
send them a check and you think, I hope they will leave us alone for a
little while.
Mr. President, 170 million Americans use public broadcasting services
every month. That is more than half the population of America. In my
State of Illinois, 1 million people listen to our 14 public radio
stations, and 3 million people rely on our 8 public television
stations. All totaled, funding for public broadcasting works out to
about $1.35 per American per year--11 cents a month. I would say that
is a bargain. It is a fraction of what people would pay to get good
information.
Eliminating Federal funding for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting is going to force many smaller stations to close, if the
House Republicans have their way. The first ones hit--West Virginia,
the rural areas of Illinois, and smalltown America. They will be the
ones to lose the service first. Rural communities will be hard hit, as
they rely more than big stations in big cities on Federal funding.
Cutting all funding for public broadcasting? Does anybody seriously
believe that will affect the deficit? But it would be a great loss to
tens of millions of Americans who rely on public broadcasting for
quality entertainment and honest, in-depth news coverage. With the
momentous changes occurring in the world, and the major challenges
facing our Nation, it is essential we maintain the integrity and
viability of public broadcasting. There is nothing in commercial
broadcasting that can replace it.
Some of our conservative friends--and one of them came up to me on
the plane when I was heading home to Chicago last weekend--say they
don't object so much to the content of public broadcasting, they just
object philosophically to the whole idea of taxpayers' money being
spent to subsidize radio and TV. They said let them go on the free
market. If they can survive, fine; if they cannot, so be it. Here is
what they ignore: FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, virtually all the major
network stations receive billions of dollars each year in public
subsidies. How?
[[Page S1593]]
In the form of free use of the public TV spectrum. These stations do
not own the airwaves. The American people own the airwaves, and we give
them licenses to use our airwaves, America's airwaves, to make their
profits.
The New America Foundation estimated the total value of the TV
spectrum used by commercial TV stations at nearly $5.5 billion a year,
and that doesn't count the additional tens of millions of dollars that
commercial TV stations make selling political ads every campaign
season. Sound familiar? We have all been there, writing checks to these
commercial TV stations to put on our ads so we can run for office and
preserve the right of that TV station to use the public airwaves--free.
The public subsidies to commercial stations dwarf what we spend on
public broadcasting.
I admire the reporting on NPR, but I am a progressive Democrat. Many
conservatives admire their reporting. David Brooks is a conservative I
respect. He writes for the New York Times and I look forward to his
column. Even when I disagree with him, I know it is a thoughtful
analysis of the challenges we face. Listen to what he said:
I think NPR has done a good job over the last 10 years of
reducing that bias. I thought it was really biased 10 years
ago, but now I think it's pretty straight, and the Federal
money for NPR doesn't go so much for the big stations. It
goes out to the rural parts of the country which wouldn't
have those stations otherwise.
David Brooks, you are right. If the Republicans have their way in the
House, the losers will be a lot of red States in red parts of America
that want to hear both sides of the story, as I believe all Americans
should.
Tony Blankley was a longtime aide to Newt Gingrich who works now for
FOX News and NPR. He said:
I've been on NPR regularly for a very long time. . . . From
a personal perspective they have always given me plenty of
access, I am clearly a right-wing commentator so I cannot
complain. There's a conservative on and there's a liberal on,
so that's all fair.
He added:
No editor or host has ever suggested, ``Could you not be
quite so conservative on this show?'' I have been open and
free to express my opinion.
Michael Medved is a conservative radio host. This is his take on NPR:
I think NPR tries harder to be fair than just about any
other media source. . . . I listen almost every day to
Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I think that they
do as good a job as anybody in media in reporting the news.
The conservative blogger said of NPR:
My own interaction with them has been fine. I have found
them to be fair. I think their coverage is often quite good.
I think NPR does a good job.
As proof of NPR's political bias, some critics of public broadcasting
point to what appear in the video to be critical comments Ron Schiller
made about the Tea Party.
This is another incident of deceptive editing. The full transcript
shows that Mr. Schiller was recounting the views expressed to him by
two top Republicans, including a former ambassador.
Let me say very clearly: Even repeating those comments was ill-
advised on Mr. Schiller's part. He no longer works for NPR.
And his comments have been roundly condemned by journalists who have
given years of good work to NPR. In an open letter released last week
to NPR listeners and supporters, the journalists said Mr. Schiller's
comments:
. . . violated the basic principles by which we live and
work: accuracy and open-mindedness, fairness and respect.
But the suggestion that NPR cannot be relied on to cover the Tea
Party or conservative organizations fairly is refuted by Tea Party
members themselves.
Katrina Pierson is a Tea Party activist in Houston. She told the
media watchdog group Media Matters:
I think NPR was very cordial to our group. They actually
came to Texas and Spent a few days with us visiting our
homes, and our work places. They attended meetings and asked
questions. I enjoyed having them here. I think the reporting
that they ended up using for All Things Considered, it was
fair.
At a time in America when we value our government, when we applaud
freedom, when we preach it to the world, when we beg authoritarian
regimes to give their people a chance to hear both sides of the story,
when we say that our Bill of Rights, when it comes to free speech and
free press, should be a guidepost for the world, can we be in the
business of shutting down this opportunity for Americans every single
day to hear both sides of the story when it comes to the big issues? I
don't think what was done in the House is about money. I think it is
about a political philosophy. Many of them think they just want to shut
down NPR because they are offended by some things that are said.
Let me say from my side of the spectrum, I have been offended the
other way. I thought they went too far the other way. But isn't that
what it is all about? They give you both sides, make up your own mind,
and that is the way it should be.
We have seen what could happen when people rush to judgment after
seeing selectively edited and sometimes deceptively edited videos.
Shirley Sherrod was fired from her job at the Agriculture Department
and painted unfairly as a bigot when she was, in fact, making a
passionate plea for racial tolerance. Her comments were knowingly
distorted in a video produced by a man who has, in the past, supported
Mr. O'Keefe.
Congress voted to cut off Federal funding for ACORN before there was
any objective investigation into Mr. O'Keefe's damaging video about
them. Later investigation showed there was no criminal wrongdoing.
Let's not make the same mistake again. Let's not be duped by
deceptively edited videos at a time when Americans need the objective
reporting and informative programming that public radio and public
television provide.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley.) Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as
in morning business for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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