Harkin Calls on Bush Administration to Provide Political Balance on American Forces Network Radio

HARKIN CALLS ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO PROVIDE POLITICAL BALANCE ON AMERICAN FORCES NETWORK RADIO

By Backtracking on Its Commitment to Air the Ed Schultz Show DOD Proves that its Missteps and Senseless Delays Prevent Political Balance

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today called on the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to provide political balance in talk radio programming on American Forces Network Radio (AFN Radio). Last year, the Senate unanimously adopted a Harkin resolution decrying the programming imbalance and urged DOD to correct it. Currently, AFN Radio is in violation of its own mandate, which states all political programming shall be characterized by its fairness and balance. Despite this, DOD has done little to improve programming and instead only back-peddled on its commitments. Harkin requested that DOD provide an action plan and a timeline for improving programming as soon as possible.

"American Forces Radio is funded by taxpayers - conservatives, liberals and moderates alike," said Harkin. "Unfortunately, it is failing to provide balanced representation of political viewpoints on its airwaves to American service members around the world. Defense officials have been dragging their feet for far too long, and it is time some real action is taken to improve the political imbalance in their programming."

Last month, a DOD official notified the syndicate that distributes "The Ed Schultz Show" that AFN Radio would begin airing the first hour of the show on October 17. However, at the last minute, a higher-level DOD official abruptly backtracked on this commitment the day the show was set to begin airing. Inclusion of "The Ed Schultz Show" would have been a first, partial step toward achieving balance in political programming on AFN Radio. Unfortunately, DOD officials said they have not yet made any decisions regarding which programming to add to the network.

"It is unacceptable that more than a year after the Senate passed its resolution, that DOD has not made a greater effort to give a balanced, fair representation of varying political viewpoints on its talk radio service," said Harkin. "There is no reason that American service members should receive lengthy right-wing commentaries with regularity on American Forces Radio's talk service, without some balance from competing views as part of that same service."

The taxpayer-funded AFN Radio broadcasts to American troops and military families stationed in more than 177 countries around the globe. While the schedules for each of AFN Radio's 33 individually programmed radio stations around the world provide a wide variety of music, sports, and news programming, not one minute of progressive talk radio programming is on the program schedules of these 33 stations. Conservative programming accounts for a cumulative total of 62 hours and 45 minutes of talk radio on AFN Radio's stations each week.

Also signing onto the letter are Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Carl Levin (D-MI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Mark Dayton (D-MN), Jack Reed (D-RI), Barack Obama (D-IL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and John Kerry (D-MA).

A copy of the letter is availible upon request.

http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=247435