Free To Choose Network, sometimes referred to as Free to Choose Media, is a Pennsylvania

nonprofit corporation A nonprofit corporation is any legal entity which has been incorporated under the law of its jurisdiction for purposes other than making profits for its owners or shareholders. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, a nonprofit corporation may ...

headquartered in

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...

. Free To Choose Network has three main initiatives: * 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 K–12 audience, sometimes adapting public television broadcasts for public school use * The Idea Channel – specializing in video recording of conversations between scholars, including numerous Nobel Prize winners Free To Choose Network was founded by

Bob Chitester Bob Chitester (October 30, 1937 – May 8, 2021) was an American Television Executive and Producer, best known for creating the 10-hour, ten-part series starring economist Milton Friedman called '' Free to Choose''. Biography Bob Chitester was ...

. At the time of Free To Choose Network's founding, Bob Chitester was the general manager of two public broadcasters in

: the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

channel WQLN-TV and the

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

station

WQLN-FM WQLN-FM (91.3 FM, "Q-91.3 FM") is a National Public Radio member station that serves the Erie, Pennsylvania, area of the United States. WQLN's studios and transmitter are located in Summit Township, south of the Erie city limits (but with an Eri ...

History

The origins of the foundation lay in PBS's broadcast of ''

The Age of Uncertainty ''The Age of Uncertainty'' is a 1977 book and television series about economics, co-produced by the BBC, CBC, KCET and OECA, and written and presented by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Background Galbraith fully acknowledged the su ...

'' (1975), a 13-part

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

series produced by Canadian-American liberal economist

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...

. The chairman of the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...

was a classical liberal economist,

W. Allen Wallis Wilson Allen Wallis (November 5, 1912 – October 12, 1998) was an American economist and statistician who served as president of the University of Rochester. He is best known for the Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance, which is named ...

, 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. They both believed that PBS should produce a classical liberal response to ''The Age of Uncertainty''. Wallis therefore introduced Chitester to his friend

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

in early 1977 (shortly after Friedman won the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

). 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 Rose Director Friedman (; born Rose Director (December 1910 – 18 August 2009), was a free-market economist and co-founder of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation. Biography Rose Friedman attended Reed College and then transferred to the ...

based on the television series, also called " Free to Choose". The 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 series that Chitester first organized Amagin, Inc., which ultimately 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 network was licensed by

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

to distribute

John Stossel John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, and pundit. He is known for his career as a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network, and Reason TV. Stossel's style combines r ...

TV specials under the brand "Stossel in the Classroom". The license was cancelled in 2004.

Current projects

The organization has produced a number of programs for public TV including: a biography of

, entitled ''The Power of Choice –'' ''The Ultimate Resource'' (named after the 1981 book ''

The Ultimate Resource ''The Ultimate Resource'' is a 1981 book written by Julian Lincoln Simon challenging the notion that humanity was running out of natural resources. It was revised in 1996 as ''The Ultimate Resource 2''. Overview The overarching thesis on why ther ...

'' by

Julian Lincoln Simon Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) was an American professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute at the time of his death, after previously serving as a ...

) – ''Turmoil and Triumph'' a biography of George Shultz – ''The Power of the Poor,'' hosted by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto – ''India Awakes'', hosted by Swedish scholar Johan Norberg – ''The Real Adam Smith,'' hosted by

Johan Norberg Johan Norberg (; born 27 August 1973) is a Swedish author and historian of ideas, devoted to promoting economic globalization and what he describes as classical liberal positions. He is arguably most known as the author of '' In Defense of Global ...

, ''"A More Or Less Perfect Union" ''hosted by United States district court judge,

Douglas H. Ginsburg Douglas Howard Ginsburg (born May 25, 1946) is an American jurist and academic who serves as a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that court in October 1986 by President Ro ...

'','' and most recently, ''"Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World,"'' hosted by Norberg. The organization currently known a
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. Much of the Idea Channel archival footage now appears on YouTube.

References

External links

Interview with Chitester on EconTalk
* {{official website, https://www.freetochoosenetwork.org/
izzit.org

Chitester Creative Associates, an organization associated with Free to Choose Media

The Milton and Rose Friedman Center at Capitaf
1985 establishments in Pennsylvania Documentary film production companies Libertarian organizations based in the United States Non-profit organizations based in Pennsylvania Organizations established in 1985