CIPB Announces our Launch Nov. 1999

Putting the PUBLIC Back into Public Broadcasting
Chosen as one of the Best Educational Web Resources

Citizen Group Kicks Off Campaign to Reform Public Broadcasting

November 16, 1999

Washington, DC - Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, (CIPB) will launch a national campaign on Tuesday, November 16, at 11:30 a.m. to reform public broadcasting as a public trust, independent of corporate and government influence, as well as to empower community groups to democratize their local stations.

"The time has come to return public broadcasting to its mission to serve as a town hall of the air and a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard," said Jerry Starr, CIPB Executive Director.

Speakers will include:

Nicholas Johnson, Federal Communications Commissioner from 1966-73, who was present at the creation of the Public Broadcasting Act. According to Johnson, "What public broadcasting has failed to recognize is that the ideas of the marketplace do not make a marketplace of ideas."

Alvin Perlmutter, Emmy award-winning producer of over 100 documentaries, including The Great American Dream Machine, praises the reforms proposed by CIPB. According to Perlmutter, "Public TV can and should provide hard-hitting documentaries with in-depth analysis of the vital issues of our time. Unfortunately, the increasing reliance on corporate underwriting has deprived the American public of this important service."

Janine Jackson, Program Director of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, is concerned that, "Public broadcasting routinely covers our society from the top down (government and corporate officials and Wall Street investors), but almost never from the bottom up (workers, consumers and those concerned with the environment)."

George Gerbner, Professor of Telecommunications at Temple University and Founding Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, advises, "For most of human history, our children's stories were told by caring people with something to tell, not corporations with something to sell. It is a tragedy that a once safe public broadcasting environment now has been invaded by these same commercial forces."

As five-second underwriting acknowledgements have expanded into 30-second commercials, a goal of CIPB will be to reclaim the Carnegie Commission's mission of public broadcasting to create programs "not to sell products or to meet demands of the marketplace," but to "enhance citizenship and public service."

CIPB will organize local chapters to democratize the governance and programming of their community's public broadcasting stations. CIPB also will act as a clearinghouse on the activities and accomplishments of these local chapters and on programs available for airing both nationally and locally.

Starr, Jackson, Perlmutter, and Gerbner will sign the CIPB Declaration of Public Broadcasting Independence during the press conference.