A Foxy Lady Foretells the Future.....Fox Attacks the BBC
mediachannel.org
Rupert vs. the BBC -- The 'Foxification' of Britain
By Dame Anita Roddick
MediaChannel.org
LONDON, October 23, 2003 -- If you live any decent amount of time in the USA, as I do, broadcast media will drive you nuts. So it's been fascinating watching what has been going on in our media over the past few months. The attacks on the BBC by Tony Blair and his government, joinging forces with Rupert Murdoch and his executives at BSkyB, must be viewed in the context of what's already become a fait accompli in the United States -- the diminution of public space, especially public broadcasting space, by the ever more powerful forces of privatization.
The effort in America dates back more than a decade, with attacks on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as a 'left-wing' network; with US$300 million in appropriations from Congress being held up by then-Senator Robert Dole; and with carefully co-ordinated conservative ad hominem blasts against such supposedly 'left-wing presences' on public television as Bill Moyers, David Fanning (who produces the pre-eminent documentary strand "Frontline,") and Rory O'Connor and Danny Schechter of Globalvision, and their purportedly 'hard-line Marxist' human rights series "South Africa Now" and "Rights and Wrongs."
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