Free To Choose Media, which produces television programs and videos making classical liberal economic and political ideas accessible to a popular audience
izzit.org, which produces media for children, sometimes adapting public television broadcasts for a school audience
The Palmer R. Chitester Fund was founded by Bob Chitester, using start-up money provided by a number of charitable sources and named in honor of his father. At the time, Bob Chitester was the general manager of two public broadcasters in Erie, Pennsylvania: the PBS channel WQLN-TV and the NPR station WQLN-FM.
History
The origins of the foundation lay in PBS's broadcast of The Age of Uncertainty, a 13-part BBC series produced by liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was a classical liberal economist, W. Allen Wallis, who had met Chitester in 1975 when he participated in a symposium on "Technology and Society" arranged by Chitester in Erie and learned that Chitester shared his classical liberal economic views. Wallis and Chitester both believed that PBS should produce a classical liberal response to The Age of Uncertainty. Wallis therefore introduced Chitester to his old friend Milton Friedman in early 1977. As a result, Chitester raised the necessary funding and executive produced a 10-part PBS series entitled Free to Choose, which first aired in early 1980. Friedman also co-authored a book with his wife Rose Friedman that was based on the television series. This book spent 5 weeks at the top of the New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers List in 1980. It was in the context of producing the Free to Choose series that Chitester first organized Amagin, Inc., which became the Palmer R. Chitester Fund, which became Free To Choose Network. Under the trademark Free To Choose Media it continues to produce media describing classical liberal economic ideas to a mass audience. Beginning in 1999, the Palmer R. Chitester Fund, was licensed by ABC News to distribute John Stossel TV specials under the brand "Stossel in the Classroom". The license was cancelled in 2004. Free To Choose Media has produced a number of programs for public TV including: a biography of Milton Friedman, entitled The Power of Choice -The Ultimate Resource -Turmoil and Triumph a biography of George Shultz - The Power of the Poor, hosted by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto - India Rising, hosted by Swedish scholar Johan Norberg - The RealAdam Smith, hosted by Johan Norberg. The organization currently known as izzit.org was initially called In the Classroom Media. Izzit.org provides teachers with materials on current events and other topics for in-classroom use. Izzit.org has used celebrities in some of its productions. The Idea Channel no longer markets the documentaries produced by Free To Choose Media. Much of the Palmer R. Chitester Fund archival footage now appears on YouTube.
