2001 - United States Court of Appeals, DC Circuit gives Viacom temporary approval to exceed the 35% ownership cap

Under Reagan February 7, 1987 CBS NEWS STAFF UNEASY OVER BUDGET-CUT REPORTS

Howard Stringer, the president of CBS News, issued a memorandum to his organization yesterday that had, for many, an unpleasantly familiar ring. ''I did not take this job,'' Mr. Stringer said, ''to preside over the destruction of CBS News.''

Mr. Stringer, responding to a report in The New York Times that the news division had been asked to examine its budget and find cuts of up to $50 million, said that ''the economic times we live in'' required new, more efficient ways of operating the CBS News organization.

Word that the news division might have to drastically restructure itself, even to finding new ways of producing the ''CBS Evening News,'' brought a good deal of anxiety to an organization rocked repeatedly in the last 18 months by demands for drastic change.

Laurence A. Tisch, the chief executive officer of CBS, has made it clear to his news division management that he wants dramatic reappraisal of the worldwide news-gathering operation, with the aim of drastically reducing the amount of money that CBS News spends each year. 'Efficiency and Effectiveness'

Yesterday, Gene F. Jankowski, president of the CBS Broadcast Group, sent a wire to CBS affiliates stating that under Mr. Tisch, CBS News - as other divisions of the company - had ''been asked to review every aspect of their operation with the strictest possible regard for efficiency and effectiveness.''

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Mr. Tisch, an outsider to broadcasting who seized power just a year after becoming a CBS stockholder, was hailed as a hero last fall by CBS News employees, who believed he would restore CBS News to a protected and cherished place within the company. Mr. Tisch is a personal acquaintance of several prominent members of CBS News, including Don Hewitt, producer of ''60 Minutes''; Walter Cronkite, the former CBS anchor, and Mike Wallace, the prized CBS correspondent.

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Bill O'Reilly is the biggest horses ass in America

Bill O'Reilly: Stupid Son of a Bitch

CBS Early Show Removes Anti-War Protesters from View in Kansas City

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“One Day of the Iraq War Equals.” (Such as $720 million, or 84 elementary schools, etc.)

“We started assembling the banners in the park,” Harritt says, “and immediately, a CBS staff person said, ‘You can’t be here. You can’t have those here.’ ”

Harritt and the other activists challenged her, saying, “This is a public park. We have a right to be here,” he recalls. And the anti-war activists had a lawyer with them who defended their right to be there.

They reached a compromise. The CBS employee, along with security, allowed them to stay in the park so long as they did not get into camera view.

“I promise you the TV cameras will not span this area,” the CBS employee said.

That’s not exactly what the protesters had hoped for.

“I was very disappointed,” says Harritt. “CBS was censoring what messages Kansas Cityans were bringing to the Early Show.”

Harritt says other signs were allowed to be seen on camera.

“One was supporting the Navy,” he says. “One said, ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.’ There were signs for things for sale, and commercial signs.”

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Girl Stenographer and Bush Administration Operative Judith Miller Takes Job at Right Wing Think Tank

NPR Touts Pro-Nuke 'Environmentalists'- Network's own nuclear links undisclosed

An August 15 NPR Morning Edition segment touted the benefits of nuclear power, suggesting it was gaining popularity with many environmentalists who once opposed it.

The segment was an interview with Fortune magazine editor David Whitford, who has written a series of articles about the debate over nuclear power. The piece was introduced by NPR anchor John Ydstie, who asserted that "with fossil fuel carbon emissions in the environmental bull's-eye, nuclear power is starting to shake off its bad reputation." Whitford elaborated on the claim that nuclear power's image is improving: "There are many environmentalists now who began their careers opposed to nuclear power who are now reconsidering nuclear power in the face of global warming."

But Whitford cited just one such environmentalist, Stewart Brand, describing him simply as the creator of the 60s and 70's publication, the Whole Earth Catalogue, and calling him "sort of the original off-the-grid environmentalist." In fact, Brand is currently a businessman, a co-founder and leader of the corporate consulting group Global Business Network (GBN). GBN numbers, among the 192 clients named on its website, more than a dozen corporations and governmental agencies involved in the production or promotion of nuclear energy: General Electric, Bechtel, Duke Power, Siemens-Westinghouse, Fluor, Electric Power Research Institute, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, Électricité de France, Iberdrola, Vattenfall, Sydkraft (now E.ON Sweden) and Sandia National Labratories. Some of these, including GE, Bechtel, Duke Power and Westinghouse, are receiving government subsidies to develop the next generation of nuclear power plants, according to a Department of Energy report. Brand's financial links with the industry went unmentioned in the NPR segment.

The Right Wing Domination Of Talk Radio And How To End It

The new report — entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” — raises serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public radio airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.
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Two common myths are frequently offered to explain the imbalance of talk radio: 1) the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (which required broadcasters to devote airtime to contrasting views), and 2) simple consumer demand. Each of these fails to adequately explain the root cause of the problem. The report explains:

Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management. […]

Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming, more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest.

Along with other ideas, the report recommends that national radio ownership not be allowed to exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast stations, and local ownership should not exceed more than 10 percent of the total commercial radio stations in a given market.

CNN Disinformation Effort