"A RIVETING TALE OF GREED, POLITICS AND TELEVISION..."

"Air Wars is an important addition to the growing body of literature on the troubled state of public broadcasting...Starr's vivid account of a series of running battles with WQED's management over a six-year period can serve as a manual of sorts for all citizens seeking greater community involvement in their public television stations...For all interested in the future of public broadcasting, it is an indespensible book combining critique and hope. As Starr writes, 'Certainly one message from this struggle is that, with enough passion and persistence, ordinary people can take on institutional powerand prevail.'"                       —Television Quarterly: The Journal of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000

"In this stirring book, Starr provides a rigorous analysis of the U.S. media and the decline of public television, as well as a step-by-step handbook for community activists who wish to reclaim local television and radio stations...With the drive and energy of “true life” Hollywood exposes like The Insider, Starr chillingly details how government officials have targeted public television and the U.S. has consistently lost alternative and independent news sources over the past three decades. Unabashedly populist in tone and intent, Starr’s work is not only a model of American idealism and community organizing, but an engrossing narrative as well." —Publishers Weekly, May 1, 2000

"It all makes for a gossipy, informative, entertaining and meticulously detailed (if one-sided) book. Names are named, noses are tweaked, toes are trod upon — including those of politicians, broadcasters and (ahem) journalists...the book offers a passionate defense of the principles behind public broadcasting — and some possible solutions for repairing the damage already done. And its breezy tone will make it accessible even for those who aren't policy or broadcasting wonks."
— Pittsburgh Tribune Review, May 17, 2000

"The history is well researched, pointing to how those with influence drove public broadcasting to emphasize the capitalist worldview....It covers ground that Starr has trod personally and that probably nobody else has written about as comprehensively: How the national dumbing down and selling out of public broadcasting played in Pittsburgh...Starr takes readers to San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix, and Jacksonville, among other places, where activists are trying to promote programming diversity in public broadcasting."
— Christian Science Monitor, June 1, 2000

Shrinking government financial support for broadcasting has forced stations to rely increasingly on corporate underwriters. As a result, Starr describes public broadcasting officials so shy of criticism that they have skewed programming increasingly to the right, censoring high-quality shows for fear of offending conservative and corporate backers. With private media companies eyeing the public stations precious air space for purchase, stations are even more at risk, Starr says. 'The media sharks will keep circling our precious few public broadcasting channels until the people put a stop to it,' he writes."
— The Washington Post, June 29, 2000

"It's a testament to Starr's storytelling prowess that he makes this heavily detailed account readable by outsiders. Quick with a comeback and unafraid to mince words, Starr is also the ideal warrior to take on a communications behemoth in his own town. Starr relates the WQED battle to the wider problem of public broadcasting: Too timid, too insular and —ironically, given that PBS often comes under fire from Republicans—too conservative in its programming choices...The key says Starr, will be whether we the viewers and listeners get involved and help shape the public media of the future."
— The Kansas City Star, June 30, 2000

"Jerold M. Starr's Air Wars explans where public television went wrong and why we need noncommercial broadcasting today more than ever...By weaving that tale together with a critique of commercial television and a vision for a more democratic public broadcasting, he shows why television should continue to be of interest to scholars concerned with the health of public life.
— Lingua Franca, November/December, 2000

"Air Wars is an important book for two reasons. First, Starr documents how far PBS and the Corporations of Public Broadcasting have strayed from their original mission of being a true public alternative to commercial broadcasting. Second, Starr's community action efforts of public activism aimed at calling attention to increasing power that major corporations, both directly and indirectly, use to influence public institutions."
— The Indianapolis Starr, December 16, 2000

"Starr suggests thorough reform strategies. He has helped start a nation-wide movement that challenges public stations to be independent and community responsive, because 'our democracy requires some space ... that is not controlled by the imperatives of power or profit.' This is an essential work for those concerned with the future of public broadcasting."
— Public Citizens News, March/April 2001

"The story of [Starr's] transition from a passive viewer of the decline of public television quality to an advocate for more democratic and pluralistic broadcasts is inspiring ... This book was a revelation ... The best recommendation for this book is that Starr has given some of us hope that we can at least fight back the capitalist onslaught with activism and humanistic endeavor."         
— Humanity & Society, October 2001

Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting
Now Available from Temple University Press
Organization and Academic Ordering Information

A riveting narrative of the price of politics, money, and ambition, and an inspirational account of how ordinary people can prevail over powerful interests, Air Wars tells how a grassroots movement of concerned citizens were able to overcome enormous institutional influence in their quest for public accountability.

These citizens believed strongly in public television's unique mission to serve the diverse social and cultural needs of local communities. When their own station neglected this mission in the search for national prestige and bigger revenues, they felt profoundly betrayed.

Jerold Starr exposes the political and commercial pressures that made strange bedfellows of the top officials of public broadcasting, the Democratic Party establishment, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, home-shopping and "infomall" king Lowell "Bud" Paxson, and billionaire right-wing publisher/philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife.

What began as a bitterly contested local struggle that disturbed the serenity of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood later became front-page national news with revelations of presidential candidate John McCain's influence-peddling scandal on behalf of media mogul Paxson. This was followed by congressional resolutions attacking the FCC's authority to regulate noncommercial educational broadcast licenses. The "Pittsburgh case" promises to be in the news for some time to come.

Far beyond Pittsburgh, Starr looks at how the reform movement has spread to major cities like Chicago, Phoenix, Jacksonville, and San Francisco, where citizen activists have successfully challenged public stations to be more community responsive.

Finally, he outlines an innovative plan for restructuring the public broadcasting service as an independently funded public trust. Joining this vision with a practical strategy, Starr describes the formation of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, a national membership organization with a grassroots approach to putting the public back into public broadcasting.

From the back cover of Air Wars:

"A step-by-step, blow-by-blow account of how the public was robbed of its most precious, cultural resource, the public airways, and how citizen action can take it back."
-George Gerbner, author of The Future of Media

"Jerry Starr's Air Wars is the Common Sense of the Information Age. With passion, intelligence, wit, and integrity, Starr tells us how the public broadcasting system has gone so wrong, and how we, as citizens, can organize to change it.  Best of all, Starr talks of his own history, winning battles to preserve and extend genuine public television in Pittsburgh."
-Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy

"All is not well in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, as public television is buffeted between its commercial aspirations and public service obligations. Jerry Starr's chronicle of his and his Pittsburgh area neighbors' struggle to defend the values of public broadcasting is a story all Americans must read to discover what's wrong with PBS-and what we can do about it. The Air Wars have to become our war too."
-Danny Schechter, editor, the Media Channel, and executive producer, Globalvision

"Jerry Starr's Air Wars documents how so many of the country's 'public' and 'noncommercial' stations have become almost indistinguishable from commercial ones, and how many boards of directors are a self-protecting elite against attempts to create a truly independent, well-funded noncommercial television system. He gives a formula for action for groups all over the country who are already in the trenches and need all the help they can get."
-Ben H. Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly

"Jerry Starr is the Rosa Parks of the modern media reform movement. He held his ground and resisted the corporate takeover of the public's airwaves. Through this inspiring book and his leadership of Citizens for Public Broadcasting, he provides a strategy for making community-responsive public broadcasting available to all."
-Jeff Cohen, media critic and columnist

Jerold M. Starr, an activist and award-winning sociologist, is founder and executive director of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, an organization established to promote noncommercial broadcasting in the service of the public interest. He divides his time between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.