President Bush bypassed the vacationing Senate and installed Cheryl Halpern on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Halpern is vice chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition and a major Republican fundraiser, and serves on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for spreading US government propaganda around the world through government broadcasts, including Voice of America.

Today we’re going to have a discussion about the state of public broadcasting in this country.

Guests:

• David Barsamian, author of “The Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting” and founder and director of Alternative Radio, an independent weekly radio program produced in Boulder, Colorado. Most recently he wrote “Propaganda & the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky.”
• Pat Aufderheide, author of “The Daily Planet: Critic On The Capitalist Culture Beat” and “Communications Policy in the Public Interest: The Telecommunications Act of 1996.” She is director of the Center for Social Media at American University in Washington, D.C. and a director of the Independent Television Service.

Related links:

• Alternative Radio
• Pat Aufderheide