The Koching of America — and of PBS

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/media/koching-america-and-pbs

A few months back the filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin got some bad news. The PBS funding that they had counted on to complete their documentary on campaign financing was being withdrawn. This setback came not long after PBS took the unusual step of warning David Koch (of right-wing billionaire donors “the Koch Brothers” fame) that he had been negatively portrayed in another of the networks documentaries, and giving them a chance to respond.

Lessin and Deal had good reason to believe that their setback was closely related to that incident. The name of their film? “Citizen Koch.”

Lessin and Deal found other funding and completed their movie, which was released on Friday, June 6. It’s a highly watchable and engaging documentary that uses Koch-funded Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s calculated war on unions – which was straight out of the Koch Brothers playbook – as the narrative thread for a broader exploration of the corrupting influence of money in politics.

Tia Lessin told us about their experience with PBS on “The Zero Hour” last month, and also gave us some background on the film. The video of that interview can be seen above.

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker used the tale of Lessin and Deal, and that of fellow documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, to tell the tale of corporate wealth and its growing influence on the inner workings of PBS.

[Ilsa]

1. Decades ago the gop slowly stripped govt funding

From public tv and public radio to force them to court large sponsors. I've watched pbs less and less as more corporate sponsors are added. I'm amazed these documentaries can be produced and shown on pbs at all.

[freshwest]

6. +1

[66 dmhlt]

2. Link to "The New Yorker" article - quite detailed

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

[xchrom]

3. +1

[davidpdx]

4. Koch suckers

When you have rich people controlling what is on TV of course they are going censor anything that is damaging to them.

[Thirties Child]

5. Watched a Nova program about Earth from Space

Two hours, about the interplay of fire, earth, air and water, and how satellites track it. I expected the last 30 minutes to be about how we are destroying the environment, but it was barely mentioned. I shouldn't have been surprised. The Koch Brothers were among the sponsors.

I fear for the future, not just of our society, but for the future of the planet. I won't be around to see it - I'm 79 - but my grandchildren will.

[Enthusiast]

7. That was a fascinating program.

Amazing that fossil plankton provided such a wealth of nutrients for Amazonian plants. It demonstrates how interconnected we are. I get the feeling the Kochs don't watch the documentaries they support.