Please explain to me and your PBS viewers why Dow Chemical Company is permitted to fund a series about issues closely linked to Dow's business.
In other words, why is PBS whoring out the public airwaves to large corporations and in-turn giving them free publicity and advertising?
From http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4522 -
Under PBS's underwriting guidelines, this show should never have been allowed with this sponsor. Over the years, however, PBS has shown a remarkable willingness to allow certain funding arrangements--usually when the funders were large corporations (FAIR Press Release, 4/3/02). The network outlines three tests that "are applied to every proposed funding arrangement in order to determine its acceptability":
- Editorial Control Test: Has the underwriter exercised editorial control? Could it?
- Perception Test: Might the public perceive that the underwriter has exercised editorial control?
- Commercialism Test: Might the public conclude the program is on PBS principally because it promotes the underwriter’s products, services or other business interests?
Frankly alarm bells shoud've gone off the moment this came up -
As the program explained, the food industry "needed a game changer" in that fight. And it got one: The "genetically modified organism, better known as a GMO."
This positively portrayed "game changer" just happens to be the very type of product Dow sells.
Monsanto could learn a thing or two from Dow.
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