Air Wars: The War Over Public Broadcasting

At the time of its conception in the early 1950s, public television was designed to provide educational programming independent of government and commercial pressures. But cutbacks in federal funding, unwise and unnecessary reliance on corporate funding, pressure from conservative interest groups and censorious government actions have reduced many public television stations to a flickering vestige of their original promise. In this stirring book, Starr, an activist and award-winning sociologist, 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. Arguing that public television is needed more than ever in this era of corporate consolidation--when ""[fewer] than 10 corporations control more than half of all communications enterprises: CDs, books, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and motion pictures""--Starr recounts his own community's successful efforts to take back control of Pittsburgh's WQED, one of the first and most respected public television stations. With the drive and energy of ""true life"" Hollywood expos s like The Insider, Starr chillingly details how government officials have targeted public television (for example, President Nixon declared war on public TV after learning that a critic of his Vietnam policy was hosting a PBS show) and how the United States 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. (June)