It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

The Kochheads are here! Defenders of conservative billionaire David Koch are going after the liberal activists going after Koch for giving a reported $18.6 to local public broadcaster WGBH over the past three decades.

From today’s Boston Herald:

Koch foes blasted for ‘politicizing’ public TV

Environmentalists seeking to oust conservative billionaire David Koch from WGBH’s board of trustees came under fire yesterday from media watchdogs who blasted the activists for “politicizing” public broadcasting.

“If the shoe were on the other foot, I think you would have outrage in a lot of places, that someone is trying to throw somebody off a board over their personal politics,” said Bob Lichter, president of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.

“My God, he’s supporting NOVA,” Lichter added of the PBS science program. “If you can get a climate change skeptic to give money to NOVA, I wouldn’t try to change that . . .

The environmental activists have gathered 70,000 signatures that they’ll try to present to WGBH trustees on Wednesday. One PBS critic, despite wanting to defund public broadcasting, calls the protest “political bullying.”

WGBH is essentially ignoring the protesters.

WGBH officials and Koch’s reps have brushed off charges that he wields influence in program decision-making. His company said he’s given $10 million to NOVA alone, and that he has no plans to step down in the face of the uproar around the Brighton studios.

Also ignoring the protesters: The Boston Globe.  Our stately local broadsheet has yet to mention the Koch rumpus, although the Globeniks will undoubtedly cover any protest next week.

Can you say Things Go Bitter with Koch?

I knew you could.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 5th, 2013 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.