News

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court today denied the appeal of a group of media corporations seeking to overturn and appeals court ruling in Prometheus Radio Project v. Federal Communications Commission. That lower-court decision last June threw out the FCC rules issued in June 2003 that would have significantly loosened media ownership restrictions over television stations and newspapers.

WASHINGTON — Free Press, the national, nonpartisan media reform group, reported today that U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) – sponsor of a federal bill that would prohibit cities and towns from delivering high-speed Internet service to their citizens – owns more than $500,000 worth of stock options in telephone giant SBC.

WASHINGTON - Following Thursday’s vote by the House Appropriations Subcommittee to slash the budget for public television and radio, Free Press, the national, nonpartisan media reform group, announced a renewed effort to shield public broadcasting from partisan meddling.

ST. LOUIS — In a historic speech on Sunday, Veteran television journalist Bill Moyers upbraided Republican operatives for hijacking public broadcasting to serve a partisan agenda, issued a stinging indictment of “Beltway journalism,” and announced that recent attacks “might just compel me out of the rocking chair and back into the anchor chair.”

ST. LOUIS — In a speech before 1,400 media activists, television journalist Bill Moyers lambasted Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), for hijacking public broadcasting to serve a partisan agenda.

ST. LOUIS — The National Conference for Media Reform, hosted and organized by the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press, kicked off at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis today, bringing together more than 2,000 people from across the country and around the world who are concerned with the current state of the media.

ST. LOUIS — At the National Conference for Media Reform on Sunday, Bill Moyers will make his first public statement on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) controversial efforts to hold PBS to a partisan litmus test.

WHAT: National Conference for Media Reform

WHERE: Millennium Hotel, St. Louis, Mo.

WHEN: May 13-15, 2005

WASHINGTON — Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today applauded Congress for barring federal agencies from producing video news releases (VNRs) that do not clearly disclose the government as their source. But the groups called on lawmakers to make the one-year ban permanent and pass stronger measures against the broadcast of government and corporate propaganda.

WASHINGTON — Free Press, the nonpartisan media reform group, today called on Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), to resign for failing to uphold CPB’s nonpartisan mandate.