Tom Harkin: “As long as there is no one else in the Chamber--if anyone comes here, I would yield the floor to whoever would want it.…”

“As long as there is no one else in the Chamber--if anyone comes here, I would yield the floor to whoever would want it. Let me go through again what this amendment does for Senators who may be watching from their offices. The ombudsman would be appointed by the Secretary of Defense for a term of 5 years. They could not engage in any prebroadcast censorship. The ombudsman would conduct regular reviews of the integrity, balance, and fairness of American forces radio programming. It would respond to programming issues raised by AFR's audience regarding the network's programming and refer complaints to American forces radio management for response. The ombudsman would make suggestions to American forces radio management regarding ways to correct imbalances, and the ombudsman would prepare and present an annual report to the Secretary of Defense and Congress on whether American Forces Radio is satisfying its mandate to provide fair and balanced political programming. So that is what the ombudsman basically would do under our amendment, not censor or anything like that. Basically, he would take complaints, pass it on to management, issue a report to us every year on whether the programming is fair and balanced, and any other comments and criticisms that may come into the ombudsman's office. So that is basically the amendment. I have had my say on it. I think it is pretty clear. I thank the Senator from Michigan for his support. I hope all Senators could support this amendment.…”