Free Speech TV (FSTV) is an American progressive news and opinion network. It was launched in 1995 and is owned and operated by Public Communicators Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1974. Distributed principally by Dish Network,

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

, and the network's live stream at freespeech.org and on

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...

, Free Speech TV has run commercial free since 1995 with support from viewers and foundations. The network claims to "amplify underrepresented voices and those working on the front lines of social, economic and

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

," bringing viewers an array of daily news programs, independent documentaries and special events coverage, predominantly from a progressive perspective.

History

1995–1999

Free Speech TV is an outgrowth of three projects that attempted to establish wider dissemination of progressive perspectives on television: , a landmark television series seen on public television and cable; The Channel, a network of seven full-time cable channels dedicated to independent media; and the part-time Free Speech TV Program Service, launched in 1995 as an innovative approach to curating and distributing independent media to a distribution network of community access cable stations. Public television stations carried some Free Speech TV's special series, such as ''Just Solutions: Campaigning for Human Right''. The network's pioneering efforts in streaming media online won it accolades such as a 1998 Streamers Award and 1999

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

2000–2006

In January 2000—as the result of an FCC-mandated public interest channel set-aside—Free Speech TV became a national, full-time channel on the Dish Network satellite television system while continuing to build a national network of part-time local cable affiliates. Program highlights from the channel's formative years included live field reporting of the anti-globalization movement spawned at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle; the

2000 US presidential election The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush ...

s, including ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

''s premiere as a television program at the

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

and Democratic conventions; the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, to which FSTV responded with a daily news report and weekly current affairs program; and extensive coverage of the large global anti-war mobilization and the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

2007–2010

In 2007, FSTV moved from Boulder to

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, covering events inside and outside the

2008 Democratic National Convention The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for president and vice president. The convent ...

, where

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

accepted his party's nomination for president. Over the following years, the network stepped up its daily coverage of national politics with the addition of ''GRITtv with

Laura Flanders Laura Flanders (born 5 December 1961) is an English broadcast journalist living in the United States who presents the weekly, long-form interview show ''The Laura Flanders Show''. Flanders has described herself as a "lefty person". The brother ...

'', '' The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann'' and Al Jazeera English. FSTV's daily news programs—led by ''The Thom Hartmann Program'' and ''Democracy Now!''—became FSTV's top programs in terms of popularity and "stickiness" (a measure of audience engagement and loyalty). During the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...

, FSTV pre-empted much of its regular non-news programming to Al Jazeera English's acclaimed reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square and other locations. In 2008, the network piloted its "eStudio" at the National Conference for Media Reform, where it broadcast and streamed conference plenaries, workshops and special interviews conducted by Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders and Jeff Cohen. Since then, FSTV has taken its eStudio on the road, broadcasting exclusive live coverage from the One Nation March, the Netroots Nation conferences, Take Back the American Dream Conferences, talks held by ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' and

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

, the Homelessness Marathon and the annual conventions of the NAACP,

SEIU Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of members ...

and the LOHAS Forum.

2011–2012

In 2011 and 2012, FSTV coverage provided a window into efforts to reform workers' rights in Wisconsin and other states, as well as into the

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to t ...

movement. To facilitate a national dialogue about growing economic disparities, the network produced ''Occupy the Media'', a weekly, live, call-in program that featured frontline activists, policymakers and those bearing the brunt of economic injustice. The series offered a national television platform for many of our peers in progressive radio, print and online journalism. FSTV served as the broadcast hub for national May Day coverage coordinated by The Media Consortium in 2012. The network secured a national channel on

in 2010; piloted its first OTT ("over-the-top") channel, on Roku, in 2011; and launched full-time cable channels in Burlington, Vermont, and

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 ...

, in 2012. The website www.freespeech.org was redesigned to better support online video and aggregated content, and the network stepped up its social media engagement on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

and other sites. FSTV and GM Jon Stout were the recipients of the 2010 National Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award, presented by the

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a major international membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It has numerous membershi ...

. This award recognizes individuals and organizations for "a profound commitment to free expression; ethics; media criticism and accountability; racial, gender, and cultural inclusiveness; and public service." Past recipients include

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...

George Seldes Henry George Seldes ( ; November 16, 1890 – July 2, 1995) was an American investigative journalist, foreign correspondent, editor, author, and media critic best known for the publication of the newsletter ''In Fact'' from 1940 to 1950. He was a ...

Molly Ivins Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, political commentator, and humorist. Born in California and raised in Texas, Ivins attended Smith College and the Columbia Univers ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

Nina Totenberg Nina Totenberg (born January 14, 1944) is an American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) focusing primarily on the activities and politics of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her reports air regularly on NPR's new ...

, and Studs Terkel.

2013–present

In 2013, FSTV started conferring with public television stations to gain over-the-air and cable carriage in major urban markets. Mobile apps for smartphones and tablets are in development. The shutdown of the progressive channel Current TV and its replacement with Al Jazeera America had major ramifications on the network. In August 2013 Free Speech TV lost its popular '' Al Jazeera English News Hour'', '' The Stream'' and ''

Fault Lines In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

'' shows when Al Jazeera launched Al Jazeera America. The news programming was replaced with news from

France 24 France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Mo ...

. On September 9, 2013 Bill Press joined the channel with his simulcast of '' The Bill Press Show'', which moved over from the defunct Current TV. In January 2014 the channel added ''

The Stephanie Miller Show ''The Stephanie Miller Show'' is a syndicated progressive talk radio program that discusses politics, current events, and pop culture using a fast-paced, impromptu, comedic style. The three-hour show is hosted by Stephanie Miller and is syndicat ...

'', also from the defunct Current TV after a successful Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to build the show's new radio/TV studio, buy equipment and produce the show. This reunites the former Current TV morning block on Free Speech TV. In October 2013 Free Speech TV and Karel.Media in association with Brandon Riley Miller Productions launched "Karel's Life In Segments" starring openly gay, history-making entertainer and former KFI AM 640 Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 Host Charles Karel Bouley. The show would pioneer the format of reality-talk, a new hybrid half-hour that takes characters and issues in the day-to-day life of a daily talk show host and turns them in to entertaining and informative talk segments set either in studio, in Karel's home or around his home of Long Beach, California. The show has also gone on location internationally including Ireland for Season Three.. The show entered its fourth season as a weekly member of the programming lineup in 2017 with a fifth season being planned. In October 2014, Free Speech TV launched '' Uprising with Sonali'', featuring Sonali Kolhatkar in partnership with Pacifica Radio station KPFK-FM, Los Angeles. Uprising Radio was the longest running daily morning show on Southern California public radio before premiering as a television show on Free Speech TV. The show is the first ever national daily news show hosted and produced by an immigrant woman of color, Sonali Kolhatkar. In recent years, FSTV's television footprint has grown to more than 40 million homes. The network's monthly viewership (cume) nearly doubled to more than 1 million households over a two-year period between 2012-2014. The closing of Current TV and the accumulation of its popular radio shows and audience combined with the movement of MSNBC out of the progressive sphere have partially contributed to the trend.

Funding

Free Speech TV is a project of Public Communicators, Inc., a non-profit,

501c3 A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

tax-exempt organization FSTV is supported primarily through philanthropic contributions from thousands of viewers and from foundations dedicated to independent media and social, economic and environmental justice.

Availability

FSTV is currently available in more than 40 million television homes nationwide, airing full-time on Dish Network (9415), DirecTV (348), Burlington Telecom (122) and Ashland Home Net (96). Select programs are syndicated on 177 community cable stations in 40 states. FSTV is also available as a 24/7 linear feed and as videos-on-demand—on freespeech.org and on Roku, an "over-the-top" distribution platform that streams video over the Internet onto connected television sets. FSTV also has a feed on the

Sling TV Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aim ...

service. Other content is syndicated on

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software a ...

and other social networking sites.

Programming

Free Speech TV broadcasts syndicated news programs and documentaries that deal with social, political, cultural and environmental issues. Independently produced news programs broadcast on FSTV include:

News

* ''

'' - Award-winning news coverage from Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. * '' France 24 World News'' - A one-hour news program from

. * '' The Last Sip'' - Current events program with Imara Jones, focusing on women and

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

people of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...

, with an emphasis on millennials * '' Uprising with Sonali'' - News program that emphasizes connecting global issues with local ones and hosted by veteran broadcaster Sonali Kolhatkar. * ''

Source Code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

'', stylized as ''SourceCode'' -

News magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

(TV show) launched in 2007

Talk shows and radio shows

* '' The Thom Hartmann Program'' - A daily call-in news and Leftist political program with author and host Thom Hartmann, based in Portland Oregon. On Fridays, it includes ''Brunch With Bernie'' - A one-hour talk segment with Senator Bernie Sanders. * '' The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann'' - A Liberal nightly news program hosted by Thom Hartmann. * ''

'' - Syndicated Liberal talk show hosted by

Stephanie Miller Stephanie Catherine Miller (born September 29, 1961) is an American political commentator, comedian, and host of '' The Stephanie Miller Show'', a Progressive talk radio program produced in Los Angeles, California, by WYD Media Management and s ...

. * '' The Bill Press Show'' - Liberal morning talk show. * '' The David Pakman Show'' - A daily call-in news and political talk program hosted by Pakman from Northampton, Massachusetts. * ''

Ring of Fire The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. The Ring o ...

'' - Liberal morning talk show hosted by Mike Papantonio * ''

The Randi Rhodes Show ''The Randi Rhodes Show'' is a talk radio show hosted by Randi Rhodes. The show combines her progressive political commentary with listener participation and live interviews. It was originally broadcast on Air America Radio, Nova M Radio, and ...

'' - Liberal morning talk show hosted by

Randi Rhodes Randi is both a given name, and a nickname in the English language, popular in North America and Norway. It is primarily a feminine name, although there is recorded usage of the name by men. It may have originated as a pet form of '' Miranda'' o ...

. * ''The Rick Smith Show'' - American working class talk show hosted by Rick Smith * ''The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow'' - Progressive radio and TV show hosted by Richard "RJ" Eskow. *

Other programs

* '' Gay USA'' - A weekly news program dedicated to gay and LGBT issues and news, hosted by Andy Humm and Ann Northrop from Brooklyn, NY. * ''OpenLine Media Presents: News With Davy D'' - A news program hosted by historian, author, rapper and talk-show host

Davy DMX David Franklin Reeves Jr. (known professionally as Davy DMX, Davy D or Davy Dee, and also credited under the name David Reeves) is an American musician, DJ, and producer best known for his work in cooperation with Run-DMC, Kurtis Blow, The Fat ...

. * ''

Bioneers Bioneers, under its parent foundation, Collective Heritage Institute, is a nonprofit organization based in New Mexico and California that promotes practical and innovative solutions to global environmental and bio-cultural challenges. Founded in ...

'' - Interviews with personalities involved in social and scientific developments in sustainability. * ''

Pirate Television A pirate television station is a broadcast television station that operates without a broadcast license. Like its counterpart pirate radio, the term pirate TV lacks a specific universal interpretation. It implies a form of broadcasting that is u ...

'' - Offers talks, interviews and documentaries about independent voices. * '' Enviro Close Up'', - Hosted by Karl Grossman * ''Every Church Is A Peace Church'' * ''Occupy the Media'' * ''Meet the Farmer'' - Hosted by Michael Clark * ''Chicago Independent TV'' - Produced by Chicago

Indymedia The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seattl ...

* '' Rox'' - in the early days of Free Speech TV, this was "the network's most popular show." * '' The Empire Files'' - documentary and interview series hosted by Abby Martin. * ''Act Out'' - "Covers the news corporate media won't touch", hosted by Eleanor Goldfield

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Free Speech Tv American public access television shows Television networks in the United States English-language television stations in the United States Freedom of speech in the United States Public television in the United States Progressivism in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1995 24-hour television news channels in the United States