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Saturday, September 18
PBS Panders to Right With New Programming
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 18 Sep 2004 05:51 PM CDT
 PBS Panders to Right With New Programming
FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
A new
public television program called The Journal Editorial Report,
featuring writers and editors from the arch-conservative Wall Street
Journal editorial page, debuted Friday on public television
stations around the country. The show joins Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered,
hosted by conservative CNN pundit Tucker Carlson, and a planned program
featuring conservative commentator Michael Medved as part of what many
see as politically motivated decisions to bring more right-wing voices
to public television.
According to reports in the public broadcasting newspaper Current (1/19/04, 6/7/04) and in the New Yorker (6/7/04), conservative complaints about the alleged liberal bias of the program Now with Bill Moyers
contributed to the momentum to "balance" the PBS lineup. The new
programs seem to be the result of that pressure. In fact, Now will soon
see its role on public television diminish, as the program is cut from
one hour to 30 minutes when Moyers voluntarily leaves the program later
this year.
At the center of this controversy is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),
which provides significant federal funding for public broadcasting
projects. Two Bush appointees to the board last year, Cheryl Halpern
and Gay Hart Gaines, are big donors to the Republican Party, and do not
hide their political agenda. As Common Cause noted in December 2003,
Gaines raised money for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga), and
chaired his political action committee, GOPAC: "At the same time that
Gaines was raising money for Gingrich's GOPAC, Gingrich was pushing
Congress to cut all federal funds to public TV."
CPB was
initially intended to be a "heat shield" for public broadcasting,
protecting programmers from political pressures from partisan lawmakers
who control the purse strings. It's long since become a mechanism for
transmitting Congress' ideological desires to public broadcasting, and
the new shows announced for public TV show that it's very effective in
that role.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
CALL TO ACTION
Please ask PBS's Pat Mitchell what new shows are planned to balance the new conservative-oriented public TV shows.
CONTACT:
PBS
Pat Mitchell, President and CEO
viewer@pbs.org
Phone: (703) 739-5000
Fax: (703) 739-5777
Or use the PBS comment form:
http://www.pbs.org/aboutsite/aboutsite_emailform.html
You might also want to contact your local PBS affiliate about PBS's rightward lurch:
http://www.pbs.org/stationfinder/index.html
Thank you for your help.
Stop Outsourcing Iowa!
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 18 Sep 2004 01:35 PM CDT
 Stop Outsourcing Iowa!
WATERLOO - Thirty
Black Hawk County residents gathered in the Law Court Theatre at the
Waterloo Center for the Arts this past week to talk about the
outsourcing of jobs in Iowa and across the nation.
This was the first of five meetings, called 'Stop Outsourcing Our
Future,' to be held by the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign. "Waterloo was
obviously a good place for the first meeting," said organizer Dave
Leshtz. "People in this area are very aware of the damage that
outsourcing does to a community."
Steve Abbott, President of the Black Hawk Labor Council, AFL-CIO, told
the group that everyone's jobs are now threatened by the trade policies
of the Bush administration. According to the Department of Labor,
Iowa has lost over 28,000 manufacturing jobs in the last three
years.
"It's absolutely crucial that voters understand how the trade
agreements now being negotiated by the Bush administration will cause
even more severe job losses for communities like ours," said Waterloo
resident Bonni Winther.
Meeting participants plan to get together again on Thursday, September 23,
at 7:00 PM at the Waterloo Public Library, to talk about education and
action strategies. For more information, call Steve Abbott at
319-939-2127.
The Iowa Fair Trade Campaign was formed during the Iowa caucuses to
educate the Presidential candidates and make voters aware of their
choices on issues of global trade. "These meetings are a good way
to let folks know that there are real differences between George Bush
and John Kerry on international trade policies," said Abbott.
The Iowa Fair Trade Campaign currently has these town hall
meetings scheduled.
Marshalltown, Sept. 27, Iowa Valley Community College, 7-8:30pm
Mason City, Sept. 29, Public Library, 7-8:30 pm
Keokuk, Sept. 30, Public Library, 6:30-8:00 pm
Muscatine, Oct. 2, Muscatine Commuity College, 10:30-Noon
Please spread the word about these meetings and let Iowa Fair Trade
Campaign organizer Dave Leshtz know if you'd like to have a
meeting in your part of the state. Suggestions are welcome. Contact Dave at dleshtz@ia.net or 319-621-4205.
For more information on the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign, click here.
The Harkin Steak Fry: Then and Now
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 18 Sep 2004 09:24 AM CDT
The Harkin Steak Fry: Then & Now
The annual Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, draws a large crowd of diverse Iowa Democrats, each with her or his own memories and reasons for attending.
Dave Leshtz (left) and Senator Tom Harkin
I've
been to many a Harkin Steak Fry over the years. Among the most
memorable ones for me were the ones that featured James Carville, Paul
Wellstone, Congressman John Lewis, and an enormous crowd for Bill
Clinton that blanketed an entire hill (Clinton shook every single hand
in that crowd). But last year was the most memorable.
As a staff person for Gov. Dean, I was in charge of filling a school
bus with undecided caucus-goers who would ride with him from Des Moines
headquarters to the Steak Fry. It was a brief but great moment to
see the bus pull into a muddy parking lot and to watch 25 elated Iowans
disembark with broad smiles and thumbs up after spending an hour with
Gov. Dean.
--Dave Leshtz, Coordinator, Iowa Fair Trade Campaign, Iowa City
As I
look forward to the Harkin Steak Fry this Sunday I remember that it was
just one year ago, at this time, that I made the decision to support
Howard Dean. As a new member of Howard Dean's "Iowa Medicine
Cabinet," I was invited to a meeting with Joe Trippi at Dean
Headquarters right before the Steak Fry. It was great to meet
other friends from around the state who were also supporting Dean and
to hear Trippi tell us about the ground-breaking use of the Internet in
the Dean campaign.
Afterwards
we boarded a bus that took us to a rally with Howard Dean across from
the site of the Steak Fry. There was a big enthusiastic crowd.
Everyone was very upbeat despite the rain and the mud. Howard
really fired up the crowd. I hope we can recapture that sense of
excitement on Sunday. We need that to motivate us to get out and
win this election.
--Elaine Baxter, former Iowa Secretary of State (1987-1994), Burlington
Iowa is
a swing state, and we are all working SO hard. Free time is something
we may rediscover on November 3. And Indianola is SO far away from the
Quad Cities. BUT, we LOVE Tom Harkin… and we can tell people about
Democracy for America and Democracy for Iowa…and our intrepid Molly
Regan, Deaner extraordinaire, candidate for Soil and Water Conservation
Commission, finally came up with the best excuse for making the
trip…The next steering committee for Regan for Scott County will be on
the bus from Davenport to Indianola this Sunday. So please join us!
--Dr. Alta Price, MD, Co-founder, Democracy for Iowa, Bettendorf
Click here for more information on the Harkin Steak Fry.
DFA HQ asks that we wear DFA or DFIA gear, but not Dean campaign gear. "I'm a Dean Democrat" is great!
Democracy
for Iowa will have a booth at the Steak Fry. After you pass
through registration, stop by the DFIA booth in the horseshoe of
tables. You can pick up flyers, signs, and buttons, and we'll let
you know where our group is going to stand for the rally.
Gallup Polls Biased in Favor of GOP
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 18 Sep 2004 04:17 AM CDT
Gallup Polls Biased in Favor of GOP
Steve Soto, The Left Coaster
[Friday]
we awoke to the startling news that despite a flurry of different polls
this week all showing a tied race, the venerable Gallup Poll, as
reported widely in the media (USA Today and CNN)
today, showed George W. Bush with a huge 55%-42% lead over John Kerry
amongst likely voters. The same Gallup Poll showed an 8-point lead for
Bush amongst registered voters (52%-44%).
Before
you get discouraged by these results, you should be more upset that
Gallup gets major media outlets to tout these polls and present a
false, disappointing account of the actual state of the race.
Why?
Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November, 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat.
You read that correctly. I asked Gallup, who have been very courteous
to my requests, to send me their sample breakdowns by party
identification for both their likely and registered voter samples they
use in these national and (I suspect) their state polls. This is what I
got back:
Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of Sept. 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%
Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)
Registered Voter Sample Party IDs – Same Poll
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%
Total Sample: 1022
GOP: 381 (38%)
Dem: 336 (33%)
Ind: 298 (30%)
In both polls, Gallup oversamples greatly for the GOP, and undersamples for the Democrats. Worse yet, Gallup just confirmed for me that this is the same sampling methodology they have been using this whole election season, for all their national and state polls.
Gallup says that "This (the breakdown between Reps and Dems) was not a
constant. It can differ slightly between surveys" in response to my
latest email.
Slightly? Does that mean that in all of these national and state polls
we have seen from Gallup that they have "slightly" varied between
36%-40% GOP and 32%-36% Democrat? I already know from an email I got
from Gallup earlier in the week that in their suspicious Wisconsin and Minnesota polls
they seemingly oversampled for the GOP and undersampled for the Dems.
For example in Wisconsin, in which they show Bush now with a healthy
lead, Gallup used a sample comprised of 38% GOP and 32% Democratic
likely voters. In Minnesota, where Gallup shows Bush gaining a small
lead, their sample reflects a composition of 36% GOP and 34% Democrat
likely voters. How realistic is either breakdown in those states on
Election Day?
According to John Zogby himself:
If
we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34%
Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross
Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27%
Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26%
Independents in 2000.
So the
Democrats have been 39% of the voting populace in both 1996 and 2000,
and the GOP has not been higher than 35% in either of those elections.
Yet Gallup trumpets a poll that used a sample that shows a GOP bias of
40% amongst likely voters and 38% amongst registered voters, with a
Democratic portion of the sample down to levels they haven’t been at
since a strong three-way race in 1992?
Folks,
unless Karl Rove can discourage the Democratic base into staying home
in droves and gets the GOP to come out of the woodwork, there is no way
in hell that these or any other Gallup Poll is to be taken seriously.
How
likely is it that the Democrats will suffer a seven-point difference
against the GOP this November or that the GOP will ever hit 40%?
Not very likely.
The real problem here is that Gallup is spreading a false impression of this race.
Through its 1992 partnership with two international media outlets (CNN
and USA Today), Gallup is telling voters and other media by using
badly-sampled polls that the GOP and its candidates are more popular
than they really are. Given that Gallup’s CEO is a GOP donor,
this should not be a surprise. But it does require us to remind the
media, like Susan Page of USA Today, who wrote the lead story on the
poll in the morning paper, and other members of the media who cite this
poll, that it is based on a faulty sample composition of 40% GOP and
33% Democratic.
Steve Soto, The Left Coaster
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