Word: gingrichs
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...fail. "If they don't perform, we're likely to put the heat on them," says David Gold of KLIF in Dallas-Fort Worth. "There'll be a lot of angry folks out there, and the talk-show hosts will be leading the charge." They already helped reverse Gingrich's decision , on his $4.5 million book deal. Other hosts are spoiling for a fight. Says Norman Resnick of KHNC in Johnstown, Colorado: "Gingrich is no better than George Bush" -- the sort of apostasy of which only true believers are capable...
...sharp parody sketches is syndicated in 23 cities, has interviewed Clinton, Bob Dole, Alfonse D'Amato, the lot. The rest of the show revels in bad taste, spitball humor and abolition of the Fairness Doctrine; it's radio freedom with a vengeance. (His show last Wednesday claimed that Gingrich earned his college degree from the "Close Cover Before Striking University of Armpit, Georgia.") "The news isn't sacred to me," Imus gruffs to a reporter. "It's entertainment. The show is an entertainment device designed to revel in the agony of others...
Never mind that some parents, given their attitude toward the big purple dinosaur, might actually call that a step forward. The race for the symbolic high ground has begun. Newt Gingrich has complained that public television is elitist and just a "sandbox for the rich," and that Joe Taxpayer should not have to pick up the tab anymore. Public-TV executives, who will argue their cause this Thursday at a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, have responded by casting themselves as champions of the common man -- and the common kid. Good grief, Newt Gingrich wants to do away with Big Bird...
There is posturing on both sides. Popular kids' shows like Sesame Street and Barney & Friends, for one thing, are well enough established to weather any federal funding cuts. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- the federal agency that Gingrich and his supporters want to "defund" -- supplies only about 14% of PBS's annual income, with the rest coming from corporations, member donations and other sources. If the $285.6 million the CPB is handing out this year were wiped out, public TV would still survive, though in a hobbled condition...
Public TV's defenders, too, are marshaling their forces and arguments. Bill Moyers, speaking to a press conference this month, caustically noted the role that for-profit cable networks -- PBS's competitors -- have played in providing a platform for Gingrich's attacks: the new House Speaker has his own show on National Empowerment Television, a conservative cable network, and was recently inveighing against the CPB in an hourlong interview on C-SPAN. Moyers expressed suspicion of "publicly supported politicians in the service of a commercial industry that, frankly, would like to see public television not exist...